Re: [Linux-fbdev-devel] [announce 0/7] fbsplash - The Framebuffer Splash

[Elladan <elladan@eskimo.com>]

On Fri, Mar 11, 2005 at 06:03:20PM +0000, James Simmons wrote:
> 
> > > > Thats why moving the eye candy console into user space is such a good
> > > > idea. You don't have to run it 8) It also means that the console
> > > > development is accessible to all the crazy rasterman types.
> > > 
> > > Yep. The basic console we already have. Everyone who wants eye candy can switch
> > > from basic console to user space console in early userspace.
> > > 
> > 
> > Heh, I'm afraid it does not work like that. Anyone who wants eye-candy
> > simply applies broken patch to their kernel... unless their distribution applied one
> > already.
> > 
> > Situation where we have one working eye-candy patch would certainly
> > be an improvement.
> 
> Why do we need patches in the kernel. Just set you config to 
> CONFIG_DUMMY_CONSOLE, CONFIG_FB, CONFIG_INPUT and don't set fbcon or 
> vgacon. Then have a userspace app using /dev/fb and /dev/input create a 
> userland console. There is no need to do special hacks in the kernel.

Putting it in userland would make it impossible to debug what's wrong
with the system if there's a kernel error, since userland will die long
before it can spit out anything useful.


The primary purpose of these things is to make a distribution look
pretty while booting.  Lots of people complain that Linux distros look
"old fashioned" or something because they don't show little dancing
girls during early boot.

I should think the primary features you need here are:

* Can display some pretty looking thing with a logo
* If there's a problem during boot (userspace error, oops, panic, etc.)
  then it should become a regular console able to scroll back over the
  boot-time spew.

I don't think a user-space version can do that for anything except
userspace errors, so a kernel console is better.

-J