Re: Adjustments to userland for a quieter startup (RC system)

On Sun, Feb 2, 2025 at 11:19 AM Steven Harms (High-Security Mail)
<sgharms@stevengharms.com> wrote:
> > Okay, I am sorry, I mixed the general idea with detailed PR that aims
> > just updating routing and devmatch parts with user selectable option
> > not changing a defaults, thus my previous remarks are invalid and
> > updated, I apologize! :-)
>
> A goal of this PR was to flush out dialogue around whether there was a universal noise level-adjusting knob in the RC system. [jlduran]'s more ambitious PR, my PR, and the discussion to this post suggest "no." I think it's probably right to generalize the discussion!
>
> I also realize that this is a probably a controversial perspective. My motivation here is ultimately service to the FreeBSD Laptop project. Windows and OSX have conditioned many in the population of the FreeBSD-curious to expect a lot less text on startup if things are going well.

Thank you Steven, and my apologies once again to mix things up badly,
I feel ashamed, I need to sleep more as my 8-bit Neural Network CPU
does not seem to cope with this surrounding world "innovation" and
multitasking :-P

Yes that would be a controversial decision to change defaults to mute
and get rid of boot/rc messages, thus my inital allergic reaction,
sorry :D But its always good to talk things over maybe a new solution
can show up that way and will not flip everything upside down over and
over again :-)

One "black box" scenario that came to my mind we did not mention is
some embedded system that we really do not want to show anything OS
related just the final login prompt.. or was that the initial idea?


> To those who say "Yes, seeing the diagnostic data is why FreeBSD is so great," I say: In a server/device context, I'd not change anything (something my PR may have flubbed in its implementation). ***But***, I contend that for FreeBSD to thrive on a wider population of laptops and access a wider population of users, some options (including such a noise knob for the RC system) ought be available. The extent that [helloSystem] went to hide messages suggests an unmet need.
>
> [helloSystem]: https://hellosystem.github.io/docs/developer/boot.html#boot-mute
> [jlduran]: https://github.com/jlduran/freebsd-src/pull/90/files
> (..)
> > * I guess the idea is to silence the terminal? How many flags need to
> > be put to silent instead just one? Why not just put a boot logo image
> > if you really do not want to see the boot messages? It may provide
> > expected user experience and will not impact diagnostic information
> > that are usually useful :-)
>
> Sadly boot_mute="YES" was insufficient as well. It only seems to  mute /kernel/-level diagnostics. Afterward, my screen was still full of RC-originating content. And yes, suppose we /could/ do an overlay until the login prompt -- I think that should be supported. It's what I _expected_ boot_mute=YES to do by default, frankly.

Looks like the boot logo screen component needs an update, so it
covers the rc scripts too, and maybe show some animated spinner
indicating working stuff in the background, and this should fix the
problem right? Most systems work that way already, and pressing Tab or
Esc jumps to the log messages easily when necessary / possible /
allowed.

Log levels is just an idea for generic commonly practiced solution
that may be applied to rc/init, you replace echo / printf with
log(lvl, fmsg, ..), but its quite a big task and not sure if really
critical right now / worth the time..?

Thank you :-)
Tomek

-- 
CeDeROM, SQ7MHZ, http://www.tomek.cedro.info