updateing splash screen faq

[Gabor PALI]

Hi joeb,

I started to review your proposed changes, and I have some comments:


> "This makes for a visually cleaner experience getting to the Xorg
> Desktop Display Manager logon screen and/or virtual console logon
> prompt."

Sorry, I do not understand this sentence.


> The "splash screen" function only supports (*.bmp) or (*.pcx) files
> of any resolution supported by VESA. An 320x200 "splash screen" image
> will be displayed as a small block in the center of a solid white
> background screen. An 640x400 or larger "splash screen" image fills
> the whole display screen. The "splash screen" function will
> interrogate the "splash screen" file pointed to by the (bitmap_name=)
> option and auto load VESA to support the required resolution for you.
>
> [..]

I do not think you should mention every detail.  In my opinion, it would
be better to put all the text into the Handbook, then reference it from
the FAQ (if you want to write all these things down step by step).  Or
why do not simply reference the corresponding manual pages for example?

I think your changes make the answer too long, a FAQ entry should be
more compact, a quick way to answer a problem, as it is the original
version.  To be honest, I am reluctant a bit to include all of
your text in the FAQ in the first round.

I would prefer a simple fix to remove the /boot/loader.rc part and
include some manual page references.  Well, here is my recommendation:


11.18. How do I install a splash screen and where do I find them?

FreeBSD have a feature to allow the display of "splash" screens during
the boot messages.  The splash screens currently must be a 256 color
bitmap (*.BMP) or ZSoft PCX (*.PCX) file. In addition, they must have a
resolution of 320x200 or less to work on standard VGA adapters.  If you
compile VESA support into your kernel (see vga(4)), then you can use
larger bitmaps up to 1024x768. The actual VESA support can either be
compiled directly into the kernel with the VESA kernel config option or
by loading the VESA kernel module during bootup.

To use a splash screen, you need to modify /boot/loader.conf to contain
the following:

splash_bmp_load="YES"
bitmap_load="YES"

This assumes you are using /boot/splash.bmp for your splash screen.  If
you would rather use a PCX file, copy it to /boot/splash.pcx, modify
/boot/loader.conf to contain:

splash_pcx_load="YES"
bitmap_load="YES"
bitmap_name="/boot/splash.pcx"

Now all you need is a splash screen.  For that you can surf on over to
the gallery at http://www.baldwin.cx/splash/.  For further options,
please see the splash(4), loader.conf(5) manual pages.


Cheers,
:g