Re: Bootscreen

Re: Bootscreen

[Balram Adlakha]

though i have recently subscribed to this list (OMG, 30 mails/hour!), I've 
read the whole thread about this bootscreen thing... I see absolutely _no_ 
reason why it should not be included in the kernel configuration, since there 
are patches available already to make it work, and there are already soo many 
useless options that adding another won't make a difference...
Many people will choose to stay away from it, including me, but those users 
coming from the windows world are scared out of their wits when they see the 
kernel booting, and I've seen it myself...
I don't think adding the option to the kernel configuration would do any 
harm...exept that the kernel source may get enlarged by (200 kb?), and the 
kernel source gets enlarged every day anyway... 2.5 is HUGE compared to 
2.2...

On Wednesday 29 January 2003 01:41, Arador wrote:

> yeah, why to do it inside the kernel?
>
> Just run a userspace logo for the first thing in the
> system in the init screens. I don't see a real reason why
> that thing should be put in kernel. Where would you put the
> 800x600 image (since you have nothing mounted)?
>
>
> Just run the first task with something that puts
> a fb logo; and send nothing to the screen until you run
> xdm. That would be nice for the users that doesn't
> want to see those horrible "debug" things.
>
> If i remember correctly, xp doesn't shows the logo
> since the start neither. It does a bit of job before.
>
> A linux kernel doesn't take too much time to boot
> (the ide detection is the slower part i remember)
>
> And the kernel messages always were, always will be,
> useful. To get a clean screen perhaps we could have
> something like a boot parm called silentdmesg, and then
> do the previous thing.

does a slient screen work when you have framebuffer enabled?

Re: Bootscreen

[John Bradford]

> though i have recently subscribed to this list (OMG, 30 mails/hour!), I've 
> read the whole thread about this bootscreen thing... I see absolutely _no_ 
> reason why it should not be included in the kernel configuration, since there 
> are patches available already to make it work, and there are already soo many 
> useless options that adding another won't make a difference...

Many old options are also removed, though.

> I don't think adding the option to the kernel configuration would do any 
> harm...exept that the kernel source may get enlarged by (200 kb?), and the 
> kernel source gets enlarged every day anyway... 2.5 is HUGE compared to 
> 2.2...

That's partly because it's a development tree.  There are big efforts
to trim it down as much as possible.

I don't see any real advantage to putting in to the mainstream kernel
something which can be achieved easily with a custom bootloader, and
kernel options.

John.

Re: Bootscreen

[Denis Vlasenko]

On 28 January 2003 23:48, Balram Adlakha wrote:
> though i have recently subscribed to this list (OMG, 30 mails/hour!),
> I've read the whole thread about this bootscreen thing... I see
> absolutely _no_ reason why it should not be included in the kernel
> configuration, since there are patches available already to make it
> work, and there are already soo many useless options that adding
> another won't make a difference... Many people will choose to stay
> away from it, including me, but those users coming from the windows
> world are scared out of their wits when they see the kernel booting,
> and I've seen it myself...

Yeah, dude, let's dumb down our users... don't allow them
to become curious and start learning.

Grown up, mature people are scared when they see letters
and numbers on the screen? On what planet am I?

And if someone *is* scared and totally non-curious, well...
do you want to have such a user? /me not.
--
vda

Re: Bootscreen [had to throw in 2 cents worth, sorry]

[Rob Wilkens]

On Wed, 2003-01-29 at 09:46, Denis Vlasenko wrote:
> Yeah, dude, let's dumb down our users... don't allow them
> to become curious and start learning.

As I recall, the way Windows 95/98/ME operated with the bootscreen (and
this might be wise for Linux as well) is to display a bootscreen, but
have it disappear if someone taps the escape key and returned to the
console where they CAN OPTIONALLY read the messages if their heart
desires.  In Windows 2000/XP, this is no longer, sadly, how it works,
but there still was (I believe) a mode in that OS where it displays all
the boot messages (/SOS option or similar).

In Novell Netware 5, which uses X-Windows incidentally (I believe), the
way out of the bootscreen was alt-escape if you wanted to switch over to
the boot console, IIRC.

The answer is that there is nothing they should have to see in the boot
messages that is useful to the end users unless an error occurs.  Even
if there is, the boot messages do and should scroll by too quickly to be
meaningful.

It's not called dumbing down users, it's called abstracting the boot
process so that the users don't have to think about it and instead can
think about higher order tasks.

Incidentally, a lot of the init "scripted" startup processes, like
"initializing hotplug system: usb" which stop for several seconds really
should occur in parallel rather than sequentially occuring.  However,
the nature of expecting their output to be plopped onto a text display
almost require them to be serialized.  If they were instead
parallellized, and set up to output to a system log when
failures/succcesses occured, sort of like the windows event log (or the
existing linux dmesg log) the boot process might occur much more
quickly.

Of course, that last paragraph is admittedly off-topic for the lkml,
since the init scripts are not a kernel issue, they are in userland. 
The kernel spawns them, though, so I consider it partially relevant (and
the bootscreen, theoretically would still be displayed as they executed,
so I still consider it relevant to this thread).

-Rob
p.s. I'm hoping this thread is about the possibility of putting some
sort of graphical bootscreen up.  I'm tuning in late, so if I'm on the
wrong page, just ignore me.  Most people on this list have already
filtered me out (plonked me), so you can too.  I won't be offfended.

Re: Bootscreen [had to throw in 2 cents worth, sorry]

[Jan-Benedict Glaw]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1564 bytes --]

On Wed, 2003-01-29 10:31:00 -0500, Rob Wilkens <robw@optonline.net>
wrote in message <1043854259.877.25.camel@RobsPC.RobertWilkens.com>:
> On Wed, 2003-01-29 at 09:46, Denis Vlasenko wrote:
> > Yeah, dude, let's dumb down our users... don't allow them
> > to become curious and start learning.
> 
> As I recall, the way Windows 95/98/ME operated with the bootscreen (and
> this might be wise for Linux as well) is to display a bootscreen, but
> have it disappear if someone taps the escape key and returned to the
> console where they CAN OPTIONALLY read the messages if their heart
> desires.  In Windows 2000/XP, this is no longer, sadly, how it works,
> but there still was (I believe) a mode in that OS where it displays all
> the boot messages (/SOS option or similar).

Well, what do you do (think 2.5.x) when you don't have keyboard drivers
compiled in? I currently do use them as loaded modules, *if* at all I do
need them. Most of the time, my alphas only have two (or three) cables
plugged in: power, network and possibly serial console... If there's a
monitor, it's wired to a monitor switch (so you can see the messages,
but basically, since there's no keyboard support loaded, it's useless),
but it won't be used. Serial console is my way to go...

MfG, JBG

-- 
   Jan-Benedict Glaw       jbglaw@lug-owl.de    . +49-172-7608481
   "Eine Freie Meinung in  einem Freien Kopf    | Gegen Zensur
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[-- Attachment #2: Type: application/pgp-signature, Size: 189 bytes --]

Re: Bootscreen [had to throw in 0.2 cents worth, sorry]

[Herman Oosthuysen]

Maybe we should replace Tux with a dancing paper clip during bootup. 
That will make everybody feel right at home and then they won't mind 
when Mozilla or X locks up on them; bug reports will go down to zero, 
since users will accept them as special features and this mailing list 
will have much less crud messages like this one... ;-)

LKML I/O scheduling (was Re: Bootscreen [had to throw in 2 cents worth, sorry])

[Alex Bligh - linux-kernel]

Rob,

--On 29 January 2003 10:31 -0500 Rob Wilkens <robw@optonline.net> wrote:

[huge snip]

> p.s. I'm hoping this thread is about the possibility of putting some
> sort of graphical bootscreen up.  I'm tuning in late, so if I'm on the
> wrong page, just ignore me.

The LKML message I/O scheduling rules suggest that if a fair number of
reads are not processed prior to write activity, then a lot of bandwidth
can be wasted and the medium can eventually become write-only due to
messsage storms. This can be avoided by ensuring writers block to allow
their read activity to progress first - the write should in general be
dependent on the reads in any case. As per Andrew Morton's post on
anticipatory scheduling, a short delay before doing the write to allow
further reads to take place is often a good idea in this context too.

--
Alex Bligh

Re: Bootscreen

[Balram Adlakha]

On Wednesday 29 January 2003 20:16, you wrote:

> Yeah, dude, let's dumb down our users... don't allow them
> to become curious and start learning.
>
> Grown up, mature people are scared when they see letters
> and numbers on the screen? On what planet am I?
>
> And if someone *is* scared and totally non-curious, well...
> do you want to have such a user? /me not.

yes they do get scared!!!
Alright I guess they are not mature...
So 95% of all people are not mature...

So linux is only for the remaining 5%?

Re: Bootscreen

[Denis Vlasenko]

On 29 January 2003 21:52, Balram Adlakha wrote:
> On Wednesday 29 January 2003 20:16, you wrote:
> > Yeah, dude, let's dumb down our users... don't allow them
> > to become curious and start learning.
> >
> > Grown up, mature people are scared when they see letters
> > and numbers on the screen? On what planet am I?
> >
> > And if someone *is* scared and totally non-curious, well...
> > do you want to have such a user? /me not.
>
> yes they do get scared!!!
> Alright I guess they are not mature...
> So 95% of all people are not mature...
>
> So linux is only for the remaining 5%?

This presumes that people don't change. They do,
especially younger ones. Linux gives them a chance.

I am sure you have seen Windows generation geeks:
even those who can potentially learn did not do that
because Windows did not let them do that.

Bootscreen blocked it all.
--
vda 3307

Re: Bootscreen

[Bernd Eckenfels]

In article <200301300655.h0U6t6s21523@Port.imtp.ilyichevsk.odessa.ua> you wrote:
> I am sure you have seen Windows generation geeks:
> even those who can potentially learn did not do that
> because Windows did not let them do that.

Well actually I do not know much people who start their windows with /SOS or
other verbose boot options, even if this is possible with windows.

I agree, that a clean boot screen where only critical information is displayed
(and possibly with some fancy animation) is good for most desktop users. It
helps them more to learn than it will stop them. There is no reason to not
add a "verbose" option.

Greetings
Bernd
-- 
eckes privat - http://www.eckes.org/
Project Freefire - http://www.freefire.org/

Re: Bootscreen

[Helge Hafting]

Balram Adlakha wrote:
> 
> On Wednesday 29 January 2003 20:16, you wrote:
> 
> > Yeah, dude, let's dumb down our users... don't allow them
> > to become curious and start learning.
> >
> > Grown up, mature people are scared when they see letters
> > and numbers on the screen? On what planet am I?
> >
> > And if someone *is* scared and totally non-curious, well...
> > do you want to have such a user? /me not.
> 
> yes they do get scared!!!

Instruct tech support to
tell the user to not waste his (or the companys) time staring at 
the booting pc. He should do something useful like reading snail mail or
cleaning up his desk.  The login window appear soon enough and then
the user forgets about that strange text.  The only time you
get a worried user reading the text is when the machine
actually hang and leave the text long enough for him to read.
And then the messages _will_ be useful for support.

_Scared_ by _text_?  Sure.  The first time.  And perhaps the
next time. And then it is just one of lifes little oddities,
"the pc pukes some boring text while starting up, nothing
exciting about that, I can login and start working faster than the 
other guys anyway."

> Alright I guess they are not mature...
> So 95% of all people are not mature...
> 
> So linux is only for the remaining 5%?

Hey, I turned on the pc, and some lights lit up!
- The power led?
Some of them were RED! I'm scared!...


Helge Hafting

Re: Bootscreen

[Stefan Reinauer]

* Denis Vlasenko <vda@port.imtp.ilyichevsk.odessa.ua> [030129 15:46]:
> Yeah, dude, let's dumb down our users... don't allow them
> to become curious and start learning.

How would a graphical bootscreen keep them away from becoming curious?
With my bootsplash patch you can either choose to hide the kernel
messages completely, or have the boot messages scroll down on a
graphical background. No information missing, it just looks a lot
better. 

> Grown up, mature people are scared when they see letters
> and numbers on the screen? On what planet am I?
The world is just not just technophile freaks, sorry if this
is new to you ;-)

> And if someone *is* scared and totally non-curious, well...
> do you want to have such a user? /me not.

Freedom for those who are more equal than others.

Regards
  Stefan

-- 
The use of COBOL cripples the mind; its teaching should, therefore, be
regarded as a criminal offense.                      -- E. W. Dijkstra

Re: Bootscreen

[Horst von Brand]

Balram Adlakha <b_adlakha@softhome.net> said:
> though i have recently subscribed to this list (OMG, 30 mails/hour!),
> I've read the whole thread about this bootscreen thing... I see
> absolutely _no_ reason why it should not be included in the kernel
> configuration, since there are patches available already to make it work,
> and there are already soo many useless options that adding another won't
> make a difference...

Patches to clean up the useless options are wellcome... but first check if
they are really useless or just there for some hardware you happen not to
have.
-- 
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