Adding splash screen section to handbook

Thu Nov 20 21:22:38 UTC 2008

Fbsd1 wrote:
> 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.
> 

Hi,

As I've just replied to original thread:

IIRC even with VESA there's a limit of 1024x768 for boot splash images.

You may want to mention sysutils/bsd-splash-changer port with which you 
can have splash image chosen from your collection randomly at each boot.

M.