Adding splash screen section to handbook

[Fbsd1]

Had to use my other email address so i could bottom post.

> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: PÁLI Gábor János [mailto:pali.gabor at googlemail.com]On Behalf Of Gabor
> PALI
> Sent: Saturday, November 15, 2008 4:06 AM
> To: joeb at a1poweruser.com
> Cc: doc at FreeBSD.org
> Subject: Re: updateing splash screen faq
> 
> Hi joeb,
> 
> I started to review your proposed changes, and I have some comments:
> 
> 
>> "This makes for a visually cleaner experience getting to the X11
>> Desktop Display Manager login screen and/or virtual console login
>> prompt."
> 
> Sorry, I do not understand this sentence.
> 
> 

There are 2 basic environments available in Freebsd, The first is the 
default command line environment which has 8 virtual consoles controlled 
by the F1 - F8 keys. When you boot the system you arrive at the F1 
virtual console login prompt. The is the environment a user would see 
after a new install from cd. The second environment is the X11 Desktop 
environment. After a user installs Xorg and one of the desktop managers, 
gnome, kde, or Xfce like explained in the handbook they can launch the 
desktop from the command line by using the startx command. Some X11 
users may select NOT to stop at the virtual console login prompt at boot 
time but go directlly to the X11 desktop. They would use the display 
manager of Xorg called xdm, or the the display manager of gnome called 
gdm or the the display manager of kde called kdm. These display managers 
basically provides a graphical login screen in place of the virtual 
console login prompt.

In virtual console command line environment the splash screen would hide 
all the boot probe messages and startup messages before displaying the 
login prompt.

In X11 environments the users would get a visually clearer system start 
up experience resembling something closer to what an ms/xp user would see.

> 
> 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:
> 

First of all, the handbook does not have any reference to the splash 
screen function. The only documentation on the splash screen is in the 
FAQ. You should know that all ready. I agree with you that the splash 
screen documentation should be removed from the FAQ and placed in the 
handbook. Complete and full documentation is what is needed and the 
handbook is the place it belongs. On that point I do not think the 
splash screen belongs under the section dealing with X11 because it 
really has nothing to do with X11. I think it should be in a new 
sub-section, in section "3.0 UNIX Basics" after 3.2 Virtual Consoles and 
Terminals, titled 3.3 Boot time Splash screen.

So I have rewritten what I posted before and made some technical 
corrections and added some more explanation background text. If you 
check out the handbook Chapter 31 Firewalls you will see that I wrote 
the whole chapter. I don't have the time nor the patiences to work 
through the handbook SGML coding and approval process. So I am going to 
hand off this new handbook section to you to do as you want with it. 
Just give me my credit do as "Contributed by Joseph J. Barbish".




Handbook Section 3.0 UNIX Basics - 3.3 Boot time Splash screen


FreeBSD has a feature to allow the display of a "splash screen" in place 
of seeing the boot messages rolling by. This makes for a clearer 
visually experience getting to the legacy UNIX virtual console text 
login prompt and/or the X-Display Manager graphical login screen.

There are 2 basic environments available in FreeBSD. The first is the 
default legacy UNIX virtual console text command line environment that 
has 8 virtual consoles controlled by the F1 - F8 keyboard keys. When you 
boot the system you arrive at the F1 virtual console text login prompt. 
The second environment is the X11 Desktop graphical environment. After a 
user installs X11.

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x-install.html

And one of the graphical desktop managers, gnome, kde, or Xfce.

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/x-xdm.html

They can launch the X11 desktop from the command line by using the 
startx command. Some X11 users may select NOT to stop at the virtual 
console login prompt at boot time, but go directly to the X11 desktop 
display manager's graphical login screen. They could use the display 
manager of Xorg called xdm, or the display manager of gnome called gdm 
or the display manager of kde called kdm or one of the other display 
managers provided in the ports system. These display managers basically 
provides a graphical login screen in place of the default legacy UNIX 
virtual console text login prompt and after a successful login, puts the 
user in their graphical windowed desktop.

In the virtual console text command line environment the splash screen 
would hide all the boot probe messages and task startup messages before 
displaying the login prompt.

In X11 environment the users would get a visually clearer system start 
up experience resembling something closer to what a (Microsoft Windows 
or non-unix type system) user would experience.


3.3.1 Splash Screen Function;

The "splash screen" function only supports 256 color bitmap (*.bmp) or 
ZSoft PCX (*.pcx) files. In addition, the splash image files must have a 
resolution of 320x200 or less to work because that is the default video 
support FreeBSD provides. Your 320x200 "splash screen" image will be 
displayed as a small block in the center of a solid white background screen.

If you want support for larger video resolutions up to the max of your 
video card you have to add VESA support by loading the VESA module 
during system boot. VESA support gives you the ability to display a 
"splash screen" image that fills the whole display screen.

While the "splash screen" is being displayed during the booting process 
you can hit any keyboard key to return to the boot message display.

The "splash screen" defaults to becoming your screen saver. After a time 
period of non-use your screen will change to the "splash screen" and 
cycles through steps of changing intensity of the image, from bright 
intensity to a very dark intensity and over again. You can override this 
default "splash screen" (screen saver) behavior by adding the saver= 
option (screen saver) statement in /etc/rc.conf. The saver= option has 
several built-in screen savers to choose from. Such as saver="warp". 
This default "splash screen" screen saver and /etc/rc.conf,  saver= 
option screen saver only applies to virtual consoles. It has no effect 
on X11 desktop display managers.

At boot time with the "splash screen" enabled you still see a few boot 
loader messages leading up to and including the boot options menu and 
the timed wait count down prompt before the "splash screen" is displayed.

Sample splash screen files can be downloaded from the gallery at 
http://www.baldwin.cx/splash/.


3.3.2 Enabling the Splash Screen Function;

Your "splash screen" (*.bmp) or (*.pcx) file has to be placed in the 
/boot directory.

For default boot display resolution (256 color, 320x200 or less);
Edit /boot/loader.conf so it contains the following:
splash_bmp_load="YES"
bitmap_load="YES"
bitmap_name="/boot/splash.bmp"


For larger video resolutions up to the max of your video card;
Edit /boot/loader.conf so it contains the following:
vesa_load="YES"
splash_bmp_load="YES"
bitmap_load="YES"
bitmap_name="/boot/splash.bmp"


The above assumes you are using /boot/splash.bmp for your splash screen. 
If you would rather use a PCX file, use these statements plus the 
vesa_load="YES" statement depending on the resolution.
splash_pcx_load="YES"
bitmap_load="YES"
bitmap_name="/boot/splash.pcx"

You are not restricted to using "splash" as the file name. You can name 
it anything you want as long as it's a .bmp or .pcx file type. Such as 
splash_640x400.bmp or blue_wave.bmp.


There are 2 another loader.conf options you may be interested in.

beastie_disable="YES"
Will stop the boot options menu from being displayed.
You will still get the timed wait count down prompt.
Even with the display of the boot options menu disabled, entering an 1-6 
option selection at the timed wait count down prompt will enact that 
boot option.

Loader_logo="beastie"
This will replace the default words "FREE BDS" which are displayed to 
the right of the boot options menu with the colored beastie logo like 
releases in the past had.