RE: AW: Bootscreen

RE: AW: Bootscreen

[Raphael Schmid]

> Right.
> 
> Q: It hangs when booting! Just get to see the cute penguin
>    (whatshisnameagain?)
> 
> A: What version of Linux? What exactly did the bird do before hanging?
BTW,
>    his (her?) name is Tux
> 
> Q: Oh, yo mean like $BIG_DISTRO 10.7.3? Yep, Tux winked.
> 
> A. No, the kernel version... [longish explanation deleted]. And exactly
how
>    many times did he wink? Which wings? Did he waddle about? How many
>    steps? Did he blink? Did you install wink-blink-boot version 27.3, or
>    are you still with the older one?

C'moon! It'd make IT so much more interesting and fun!
Think of all the increased communication skills mankind
would develop through this!

Seriously, *laughs*, I don't think debugging user problems
would escalate into such a scenario. Let me again point out
my proposal:

There is *one* line of boot messages shown. Whenever the
System hangs, you will see the last message. Carefully
designed messages will greatly help, of course.

- Raphael

Re: AW: Bootscreen

[Tomas Szepe]

> [Raphael_Schmid@CUBUS.COM]
> 
> There is *one* line of boot messages shown. Whenever the
> System hangs, you will see the last message. Carefully
> designed messages will greatly help, of course.

This whole idea has been vetoed and scrapped a great many
times before, and for very valid reasons.  Read the archives
and respect the conclusions drawn.

If you can't live w/o a fancy penguin logo and a progress bar,
hack the silly thing for yourself and don't bother others with it.

Ideas like yours remind me just how GREAT it is that Linus is
so hard to get to accept patches.  People are constantly trying
to get such a tremendous quantity of absolute junk into the
tree that it ceases to be funny.

-- 
Tomas Szepe <szepe@pinerecords.com>

PS.  The hall of fame thing is actually pretty cool.

Re: AW: Bootscreen

[John Bradford]

> Ideas like yours remind me just how GREAT it is that Linus is
> so hard to get to accept patches.  People are constantly trying
> to get such a tremendous quantity of absolute junk into the
> tree that it ceases to be funny.

Also, when a really good idea *does* come along, (morse code on the
keyboard LEDs, for example), it get included, which is good.

I am thinking of re-wiring the MHz indicator on this machine to the
parallel port, so that it can display the number of unread E-Mails
I've got :-).  The turbo light is currently a SCSI bus activity
indicator.  Oh, and it would be really cool would be two bulbs behind
Linux and BSD case badges, which light up to indicate which OS is
running :-).

John

Re: AW: Bootscreen

[Dave Jones]

On Wed, Jan 29, 2003 at 01:54:14PM +0000, John Bradford wrote:
 > > Ideas like yours remind me just how GREAT it is that Linus is
 > > so hard to get to accept patches.  People are constantly trying
 > > to get such a tremendous quantity of absolute junk into the
 > > tree that it ceases to be funny.
 > 
 > Also, when a really good idea *does* come along, (morse code on the
 > keyboard LEDs, for example), it get included, which is good.

That was never included in mainline, and only exists in Alans tree afaik.

		Dave

-- 
| Dave Jones.        http://www.codemonkey.org.uk
| SuSE Labs

Morse code on keyboard LEDs

[John Bradford]

>  > > Ideas like yours remind me just how GREAT it is that Linus is
>  > > so hard to get to accept patches.  People are constantly trying
>  > > to get such a tremendous quantity of absolute junk into the
>  > > tree that it ceases to be funny.
>  > 
>  > Also, when a really good idea *does* come along, (morse code on the
>  > keyboard LEDs, for example), it get included, which is good.
> 
> That was never included in mainline, and only exists in Alans tree afaik.

Alan - Is there any reason why that can't go in to mainline, (apart from the
feature melt^Wfreeze)?

John,

Re: Morse code on keyboard LEDs

[Alan Cox]

> > That was never included in mainline, and only exists in Alans tree afaik.
> 
> Alan - Is there any reason why that can't go in to mainline, (apart from the
> feature melt^Wfreeze)?

I'm all for it going mainline. For 2.4 it always seemed to be useful but
trivial so probably not an appropriate mainstream item, for 2.5 I'd like to
see it in.

Re: AW: Bootscreen

[Jesse Pollard]

On Wednesday 29 January 2003 05:56 am, Raphael Schmid wrote:
[snip]
>
> Seriously, *laughs*, I don't think debugging user problems
> would escalate into such a scenario. Let me again point out
> my proposal:
>
> There is *one* line of boot messages shown. Whenever the
> System hangs, you will see the last message. Carefully
> designed messages will greatly help, of course.

Of course, you HAVE to suppress the new line at the end of
every line - and force a newline at the beginning of every message
... or you will only have a blank line.
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jesse I Pollard, II
Email: pollard@navo.hpc.mil

Any opinions expressed are solely my own.

RE: AW: Bootscreen

[Raphael Schmid]

> Of course, you HAVE to suppress the new line at the end of
> every line - and force a newline at the beginning of every message
> ... or you will only have a blank line.
Why not modify printk, so it just skips \n? *evil grin*

AW: Bootscreen

[Raphael Schmid]

> > Sure some of the kernel's output could be cleaned up a
> > little, but for the most part its not "geeky" - its useful and
> > informative.
> They are geeky, but useful - If you got a system that causes trouble.
> Otherwise, if your system works right, they are just some more bits 
> flickering on your screen.
I was the one who began with "geeky". Sorry for that, was probably a
bit ... well, strong.

> Why oh why do we always need to compare ourselfes to Windows. "Windows
> does this, windows does that" Whatever.. that is of no relevance. And if
> it was QNX or RTOS we are cloning and the thing we cloned is a good
> idea, what shalls...? It seems to me that everything that lacks the
> status quo in kernel message visability is a windows clone?
That what I wanted to say with "Can we get rid of the "stupid guy who's 
trying to clone Windows" dogma, please?". Yours are more appropriate words.

AW: Bootscreen

[Raphael Schmid]

> Lots of systems cannot do 800x600 or 1024x768. Some of them cannot
> do 640x480 very well but 640x480 is safe except for weird kit because
> of the VGA mode support.
Again feeling a little uneducated here. What's "Wierd Kit"?
Besides that, thanks for your agreement ;-)

Re: AW: Bootscreen

[Stephen Wille Padnos]

You need an English to English translation dictionary :)

"Kit" in British English means "equipment" or "stuff", so "weird kit" is 
"strange equipment".

(It can also mean sleep, and a number of other things, from violins to 
clothing.)
- Steve

Raphael Schmid wrote:

>>Lots of systems cannot do 800x600 or 1024x768. Some of them cannot
>>do 640x480 very well but 640x480 is safe except for weird kit because
>>of the VGA mode support.
>>    
>>
>Again feeling a little uneducated here. What's "Wierd Kit"?
>Besides that, thanks for your agreement ;-)
>  
>

Re: AW: Bootscreen

[Alan Cox]

On Tue, 2003-01-28 at 14:58, Raphael Schmid wrote:
> > Lots of systems cannot do 800x600 or 1024x768. Some of them cannot
> > do 640x480 very well but 640x480 is safe except for weird kit because
> > of the VGA mode support.
> Again feeling a little uneducated here. What's "Wierd Kit"?

No idea, but wEIrd kit is real English for "unusual hardware"

AW: Bootscreen

[Raphael Schmid]

> In vesafb this is different. The video mode is set before 32bit mode is
> entered, then the 32bit part of the kernel just assumes it can paint to
> some memory found attached to the graphics device.
> Still, for painting a bootsplash screen using fbcon, this does not
> matter as all you need is the framebuffer memory.
Well, I believe we had quite some "threads" developing in this thread now,
where I was trying to find any possible solution to fit my needs. This
idea had come up before your pointing out your patch.

Re: AW: Bootscreen

[Aaron Lehmann]

On Tue, Jan 28, 2003 at 03:53:58PM +0100, Raphael Schmid wrote:
> > In vesafb this is different. The video mode is set before 32bit mode is
> > entered, then the 32bit part of the kernel just assumes it can paint to
> > some memory found attached to the graphics device.
> > Still, for painting a bootsplash screen using fbcon, this does not
> > matter as all you need is the framebuffer memory.
> Well, I believe we had quite some "threads" developing in this thread now,

Yes, can you please stop breaking threading?

AW: Bootscreen

[Raphael Schmid]

> Have a look at ftp.suse.com/pub/people/stepan/bootsplash/ - There you
> find kernel patches, user space utilities and such to display a
> bootsplash screen. You can either choose to have a picture put "behind"
> your text, or have a picture _instead_ of text. (triggerable with a 
> boot parameter so anybody is happy). And yes, it _does_ look cool to see
> your kernel messages scrolling up on a background of a slightly faded
> out penguin, looking like a water sign. ;-)
Janne has already posted that URL, but if you're the one who's written it,
thanks a lot! Looks like a pretty ultimate solution :-)

> My patch above includes a small and efficient jpeg decoder (8k), which
> allows you to read any jpg picture from an initrd.
There is still good in the world!

> It's not alien, and it does make sense. I, speaking for myself, know the
> kernel boot messages by heart and I don't expect them to change with the
> 2957596. bootup of my linux box. ;)
*g*

> Any comments?
Not anymore. ;-)

- Raphael

AW: Bootscreen

[Raphael Schmid]

> Yeah, I'd really like a stable working swsusp (on a working kernel) to
> shortcut the fscking boot. Go pawel !
What's an swsusp?

Re: AW: Bootscreen

[Xavier Bestel]

Le mar 28/01/2003 à 15:48, Raphael Schmid a écrit :
> > Yeah, I'd really like a stable working swsusp (on a working kernel) to
> > shortcut the fscking boot. Go pawel !
> What's an swsusp?

It's a suspend-to-disk feature for the 2.5 kernel. For laptops and
desktops.

	Xav

AW: Bootscreen

[Raphael Schmid]

> Hi,
> 
> I just upgraded from 3.6.1, which booted fine, to 3.6.2, which stops
> after Tux has waved twice, and winked his left eye.
> 
> John
Sounds pretty fun to me!

Re: AW: Bootscreen

[Horst von Brand]

Raphael Schmid <Raphael_Schmid@CUBUS.COM> said:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I just upgraded from 3.6.1, which booted fine, to 3.6.2, which stops
> > after Tux has waved twice, and winked his left eye.
> > 
> > John
> Sounds pretty fun to me!

Right.

Q: It hangs when booting! Just get to see the cute penguin
   (whatshisnameagain?)

A: What version of Linux? What exactly did the bird do before hanging? BTW,
   his (her?) name is Tux

Q: Oh, yo mean like $BIG_DISTRO 10.7.3? Yep, Tux winked.

A. No, the kernel version... [longish explanation deleted]. And exactly how
   many times did he wink? Which wings? Did he waddle about? How many
   steps? Did he blink? Did you install wink-blink-boot version 27.3, or
   are you still with the older one?

[ad nauseam]

No, thanks. I'd had enough with Aunt Tillie and her family.
-- 
Dr. Horst H. von Brand                   User #22616 counter.li.org
Departamento de Informatica                     Fono: +56 32 654431
Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria              +56 32 654239
Casilla 110-V, Valparaiso, Chile                Fax:  +56 32 797513

Re: AW: Bootscreen

[John Bradford]

> > > I just upgraded from 3.6.1, which booted fine, to 3.6.2, which stops
> > > after Tux has waved twice, and winked his left eye.
> > > 
> > Sounds pretty fun to me!
> 
> Right.
> 
> Q: It hangs when booting! Just get to see the cute penguin
>    (whatshisnameagain?)
> 
> A: What version of Linux? What exactly did the bird do before hanging? BTW,
>    his (her?) name is Tux
> 
> Q: Oh, yo mean like $BIG_DISTRO 10.7.3? Yep, Tux winked.
> 
> A. No, the kernel version... [longish explanation deleted]. And exactly how
>    many times did he wink? Which wings? Did he waddle about? How many
>    steps? Did he blink? Did you install wink-blink-boot version 27.3, or
>    are you still with the older one?
> 
> [ad nauseam]

The funny thing is, in a few years, somebody will probably read
through these old comments in the archive, and decide to implement the
animated Tux boot sequence just for a laugh, and then we really *will*
get bug reports like that.  I will then probably get flamed for
suggesting it in the begining :-).

John

Re: AW: Bootscreen

[Valdis.Kletnieks]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 417 bytes --]

On Wed, 29 Jan 2003 11:10:23 +0100, Horst von Brand said:

> Q: It hangs when booting! Just get to see the cute penguin
>    (whatshisnameagain?)
> 
> A: What version of Linux? What exactly did the bird do before hanging? BTW,
>    his (her?) name is Tux

Q: Actually, Tux made an obscene gesture and fell over.

A: Oh, that's the F00bar worm.  You forgot to apply the security patch for
Frizbee 2.3, didn't you?

:)

[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 226 bytes --]

AW: Bootscreen

[Raphael Schmid]

> WinXP outputs an image, starts it dim, fades it up to bright, starts a
> sliding indicator, moves the slider back and forth at various speeds, then
> starts the gui (?) and it goes more various steps.
> 
> I imagine someone with the right documentation could say exactly what's
> going on at each step.
I imagine you'll hardly find such a "someone" ;-)

AW: Bootscreen

[Raphael Schmid]

> I agree that it may be less inappropriate for certain specialised 
> applications, such as the one you suggested, but Raphael made specific 
> reference to Windows and Mac OS, which implies desktop use.
Indeed, I'm looking at desktop usage.

> I am totally fed up with the quest to make Linux into as close to a copy 
> of Windows as possible.
See, if there was no Windows, and no MacOS, and I'd see Linux boot...
...don't you think I'd still say -at some point- "Gee, these text messages
are so geeky. I'd like to have a cute picture shown while booting"? I mean,
really. Can we get rid of the "stupid guy who's trying to clone Windows"
dogma, please?

> OK, but in this case you would have problems with BIOS output etc. If you 
> left Linux alone, but fixed the BIOS to output at the required 
> frequencies, it would work - and using the quiet option, together with 
> appropriate output from the init scripts (which would presuambly be 
> heavily customised, in such an application) would yield a similar result.
I don't know about any TV applications. In my very case, the BIOS doesn't
do anything wrong. (Besides: there's also LinuxBIOS, which can also display
a cute picture, iirc). I have a bootloader, which puts a nice picture on
the screen. And I want that picture to remain there until X is running.
That's all. In actual fact, I'm really frugal.

> Wait screen, then just hangs", which would then require an engineer visit,
> as opposed to, for example, "it says Obtaining IP Address... then hangs"  
I do have a solution for that. Just make the image 640x440 instead 640x480,
and have the initscripts output on one of the lower lines only, always over-
writing the previous message. That way, the support engineer would know
what's
going wrong and you'd still have a cute picture.

Re: AW: Bootscreen

[John Bradford]

> > Wait screen, then just hangs", which would then require an
> > engineer visit, as opposed to, for example, "it says Obtaining IP
> > Address... then hangs"
> I do have a solution for that. Just make the image 640x440 instead
> 640x480, and have the initscripts output on one of the lower lines
> only, always over-writing the previous message. That way, the
> support engineer would know what's going wrong and you'd still have
> a cute picture.

At the moment, the framebuffer reserves a few lines for the Tux icons,
and uses the rest for text.  Why not just modify that code to achieve
what you want, (a large logo, and a text window).

You could do that on the Atari 65XE, have a text mode window at the
bottom of a graphics screen :-)

John

Re: AW: Bootscreen

[Robert Morris]

Hello there,

On Tue, 28 Jan 2003, Raphael Schmid wrote:

> See, if there was no Windows, and no MacOS, and I'd see Linux boot...
> ...don't you think I'd still say -at some point- "Gee, these text messages
> are so geeky. I'd like to have a cute picture shown while booting"? I mean,
> really.

I've been using Linux since 1.0.9 - and I've *never* *ever* thought of the
idea of covering up the output from either kernel or other startup stuff
with a graphic. Sure some of the kernel's output could be cleaned up a
little, but for the most part its not "geeky" - its useful and
informative.

And, I think that assuming that non-"geeky" users prefer to see something
"cute" when their OS boots up, rather than output which is useful to
someone else if not themselves, is rather insulting to them.

> Can we get rid of the "stupid guy who's trying to clone Windows" dogma,
> please?

I didn't say you were a stupid guy. I did say cloning Windows is a stupid 
idea. There is a difference.

> I do have a solution for that. Just make the image 640x440 instead
> 640x480, and have the initscripts output on one of the lower lines only,
> always over- writing the previous message. That way, the support
> engineer would know what's going wrong and you'd still have a cute
> picture.

*sigh*


Robert Morris
08707 458710
http://www.r-morris.co.uk/

AW: Bootscreen

[Raphael Schmid]

> Fbcon, Kernel Graphics Interface (http://kgi-wip.sourceforge.net, no we
> don't use ioctls or kernel space for accelleration anymore). Enough choice
> for your "graphical OS" ;-)
I'll have a look. Thanks for the hint.

AW: Bootscreen

[Raphael Schmid]

> try init=/bin/bash in kernel command line.
Maybe I have a bad aura towards Linux or 
something, but I can *still* press Alt-Fx.

You know, I've thought about the Bootscreen
thingy again, and also had a quick peek (on
Windows here) at those patches.

2.5 is all nice and fluffy, but you shouldn't
use it for any end user software really.

Would it be possible/easy (i.e.: the least
way of resistance) to modify the kernel so
that console initialization does not happen
until everything is up and running? What I
was up to in the first place was getting into
X as fast as possible, and without too many
different screens. I've even been thinking
of setting the hostname, bringing up loop-
back networking and calling xinit directly 
from within the kernel (init/main.c or where
was it?).

So if Linux would not do *anything* to the
screen (as in: just leave alone whatever the 
bootloader put there) just one command before
xinit is called, I'd be the most happy guy
on the planet and you'd see me jump around
in circles :-)

- Raphael 

Re: AW: Bootscreen

[John Bradford]

> Would it be possible/easy (i.e.: the least
> way of resistance) to modify the kernel so
> that console initialization does not happen
> until everything is up and running? What I
> was up to in the first place was getting into
> X as fast as possible, and without too many
> different screens.

There is a boot option to do this, but I can't remember what it is :-)

It's something like boot=silent, or something.

then, you just get:

LILO loading linux...
Uncompressing the kernel...

Welcome to Linux 2.4.20
login:

John.

Re: AW: Bootscreen

[Alex Riesen]

John Bradford, Tue, Jan 28, 2003 11:32:34 +0100:
> > Would it be possible/easy (i.e.: the least
> > way of resistance) to modify the kernel so
> > that console initialization does not happen
> > until everything is up and running? What I
> > was up to in the first place was getting into
> > X as fast as possible, and without too many
> > different screens.
> 
> There is a boot option to do this, but I can't remember what it is :-)
> 
> It's something like boot=silent, or something.

"quiet"
It sets console log level to maximum.

> then, you just get:
> 
> LILO loading linux...
> Uncompressing the kernel...
> 
> Welcome to Linux 2.4.20
> login:
> 
> John.
> -

AW: Bootscreen

[Raphael Schmid]

> Linux machines shouldn't ever need to be rebooted, so you'd only ever
> see it once, (on each machine) :-).
Mind you, but I happen to be very sensitive to electronic smog ;-)

- Raphael