Tradeshow Crowd Pullers

[Joshua Oreman]

On Wed, Aug 13, 2003 at 12:57:09AM +0100 or thereabouts, Claire Q'vant wrote:
>  --- Joshua Oreman <oremanj at get-linux.org> wrote: > On
> Tue, Aug 12, 2003 at 11:53:29PM +0100 or
> > thereabouts, Claire Q'vant wrote:
> > > We're going to have a booth at a trade show in a
> > few
> > > months, and we'd like to have a few machines
> > running
> > > FreeBSD for people to play with.
> > > 
> > > But, as a crowd puller, it'd be nice to have a
> > > graphical bootup sequence.
> > > 
> > > I know it's not the 'done thing' for a server OS,
> > but
> > > for a workstation OS, it's a very nice touch.
> > > 
> > > Does anyone know of any code to do it?
> > > Any projects already started?
> > > 
> > > I'm aware it'll have to be a kernel module, as
> > it's
> > > the only thing running at that stage.
> > > 
> > > I don't know if VGL and VESA will do it - it
> > handles
> > > the 'splash' modules ok, but this module would
> > require
> > > sysctl's to tell the module to display the next
> > icon,
> > > e.g.
> > > Starting Network (greyed out icon)
> > > Network Started ok (Coloured icon)
> > > Network Start Failed (Coloured with cross through
> > it)
> > > 
> > > Has anyone seen anything like this?
> > > Is anyone keen?
> > 
> [ ... ]
> > You may be able to use a combination of splash.ko
> > and a custom X program to do what you want.
> > 
> > -- Josh
> > 
> > > 
> > > Claire
> Hmm. Starting X(albeit minimal) is not what I'm after,
> as it needs to appear as soon as the kernel is loaded
> - directly after the POST screen...
> The filesystem isn't mounted for a while after that,
> as the kernel detects hardware, and sets out
> resources, etc, and I'd like that to be
> graphical(represented, at least)
> 
> It's worth consideration though, if nothing else
> happens...

If you want a graphical dmesg, that's probably not going to be that
useful. Will anyone *care* about 5 seconds of text?

If you still want to cover it up, what you can do is put a splash
screen up and then start a small X server ASAP (probably in /etc/rc).

That's the closest you're going to get to what you want.

-- Josh

> 
> Claire
> 
> 
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