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

Blue Swirl
2008-12-16T20:06:57Z

On 12/16/08, Laurent Vivier <Laurent.Vivier@bull.net> wrote:
> This series of patches adds a nice BIOS startup splash screen.
>
> It adds a "-splash" option allowing to specify the picture file name (a 640x480 (or less) and true color PNG) to display. You can enable/disable fade in,
> fade out and bootmenu. The time to display the image can be also given (in
> seconds).
>
> Idea and some parts of code are stollen from VirtualBox (GPLv2/CDDL).
>
> [PATCH 1/3] Correct fw_cfg_add_callback()
> [PATCH 2/3] [BIOS] Add splash image support
> [PATCH 3/3] [QEMU] Add BIOS splash image

On second thought, there is no Gtk/Qt GUI because that is supposed to
be external to Qemu. By the same logic, why should there be any splash
screen? The external GUI can probably show it as easily using the same
Gtk/Qt/whatever. The control channel may still be needed.

Alternatively the BIOS could load the image and fade parameters from a
new ROM or from the configuration device and draw it to screen. This
would need some PNG support to BIOS, or that the image stored in raw
form.