Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 0/3] Add BIOS splash image support

Daniel P. Berrange
2008-12-17T14:03:46Z

On Wed, Dec 17, 2008 at 01:18:57PM +0000, Paul Brook wrote:
> > > Modern BIOSes have splash screens. I don't see why our BIOS shouldn't
> > > have one too.
> >
> > Crap PC BIOSes have splash screens because they're horribly slow
> > and otherwise printing lots of irrelevant scary junk at users. The
> > best BIOS 'splash' screen is one which never appears unless there
> > is a boot failure, and gets control to the OS as quickly as possible.
> > IMHO a better goal is reducing the time until the OS / bootloader is
> > able to take over all management of the display.
>
> I agree. The qemu bios init process takes almost no time.
>
> The only reason it takes a noticeable amount of time is that we have a
> deliberate delay in there to allow the user to access the boot menu.
> I'm not convinced this menu is actually very useful in practice, It's
> something that should probably be delegated to your management utility and/or
> be optional.

I agree - if you've not got an easy way to switch boot devices already,
then that's a bug in the management app being used. So a way to turn off
this BIOS boot menu would be benefical.

Daniel
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