Make the init-process look like the StarWars Credits

Make the init-process look like the StarWars Credits

[Niels Ippensen]

Hi,

I was wondering if there is a way to make the boot-process look 
StarWars-like:


   		lalallaal
  	llalalallalalalalalalalalala
lalalalalalalaalallalalalalalalalallala

and let it scroll up the screen. I would think that this could be done 
with the Framebuffer-Device. Maybe something like fblogo or so.

Thanks,
Niels

-- 
Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
Through me among the people lost for aye.
Justice the founder of my fabric moved:
To rear me was the task of Power divine,
Supremest Wisdom, and primeval Love.
Before me things create were none, save things
Eternal, and eternal I endure.
All hope abandon, ye who enter here.

Re: Make the init-process look like the StarWars Credits

[Rob Couto]

On Friday 09 January 2004 11:55, Niels Ippensen wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I was wondering if there is a way to make the boot-process look
> StarWars-like:
>
>
>    		lalallaal
>   	llalalallalalalalalalalalala
> lalalalalalalaalallalalalalalalalallala
>
> and let it scroll up the screen. I would think that this could be done
> with the Framebuffer-Device. Maybe something like fblogo or so.
>
> Thanks,
> Niels


if your processor is so fast that it gets bored waiting for your disk, that 
could be cool ;)

http://www.bootsplash.org has the utils for full-screen fb logo and other 
stuff, i.e. fbmngplay and fbtruetype, playback mng anims and drop text in any 
size/color/position on the screen in a TrueType font. mix that together with 
some nice bilinear filtering and you'd have the beginning of a jaw-dropping 
misuse of CPU :)

so in other words, without examining the practicality, yes. the fb can do that 
if the kernel console that gets rendered to the fb can be piped thru a gimpy 
pre-processor. sounds like fun. maybe one could even borrow the code from the 
starwars XScreenSaver to do the pretty rendering, since it already takes 
plaintext input.

-- 
Rob Couto
rpc@cafe4111.org
Rules for computing success:
1) Attitude is no substitute for competence.
2) Ease of use is no substitute for power.
3) Safety matters; use a static-free hammer.
--

Re: Make the init-process look like the StarWars Credits

[Rob Couto]

>maybe one could even borrow the code
> from the starwars XScreenSaver to do the pretty rendering, since it already
> takes plaintext input.

oops, uhm, i forgot the X in XScreenSaver. you'd have to bring your own 
drawing routines, never mind that someone made X do it already...

-- 
Rob Couto
rpc@cafe4111.org
Rules for computing success:
1) Attitude is no substitute for competence.
2) Ease of use is no substitute for power.
3) Safety matters; use a static-free hammer.
--

Re: Make the init-process look like the StarWars Credits

[Måns Rullgård]

Rob Couto <rpc@cafe4111.org> writes:

> On Friday 09 January 2004 11:55, Niels Ippensen wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I was wondering if there is a way to make the boot-process look
>> StarWars-like:
>>
>>
>>    		lalallaal
>>   	llalalallalalalalalalalalala
>> lalalalalalalaalallalalalalalalalallala
>>
>> and let it scroll up the screen. I would think that this could be done
>> with the Framebuffer-Device. Maybe something like fblogo or so.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Niels
>
> if your processor is so fast that it gets bored waiting for your disk, that 
> could be cool ;)
>
> http://www.bootsplash.org has the utils for full-screen fb logo and
> other stuff, i.e. fbmngplay and fbtruetype, playback mng anims and
> drop text in any size/color/position on the screen in a TrueType
> font. mix that together with some nice bilinear filtering and you'd
> have the beginning of a jaw-dropping misuse of CPU :)
>
> so in other words, without examining the practicality, yes. the fb
> can do that if the kernel console that gets rendered to the fb can
> be piped thru a gimpy pre-processor. sounds like fun. maybe one
> could even borrow the code from the starwars XScreenSaver to do the
> pretty rendering, since it already takes plaintext input.

I suppose it would be possible to use 3D features of the graphics
chip.  It would require a rather massive hacking in the fb driver, of
course.

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mru@kth.se

Re: Make the init-process look like the StarWars Credits

[Rob Couto]

On Friday 09 January 2004 13:39, Måns Rullgård wrote:
> I suppose it would be possible to use 3D features of the graphics
> chip.  It would require a rather massive hacking in the fb driver, of
> course.

massive hacking? hehe, yea. geniuses, please stop me when I stop making 
sense...

AFAICT, that would be both excellent and terrible at the same time. using hw 
accel makes the process lighter on CPU and looks great but ridiculously 
intense on the coder... i mean, who could you recruit to take X11 vid drivers 
and mutate them into kernel code? you'd need 3D code that belongs to Mesa, 
DRI code that belongs to whatever X module and the matching kernel module, 
possibly agpgart, and so on. by the time it's 3D, you aren't using the 
framebuffer code, you've taken the GUI and moved it into the kernel --- hello 
Win32. That's if you did it smart and made it modular enough to have other 
purposes, i.e. X11 overdrive... then X needs to know about it, or at least 
the DRI module involved, and then it's either they trip over one another or X 
gets cut down to just the libs and network activity. then maybe the kernel 
begins with X which starts your xterms fullscreen on vt1-6. all the time it's 
faster and loads sooner. and along with it, you get the legendary stability 
of a MS slop'erating system. to have that much for one brief piece of 
eyecandy is a little silly. and when the booting's done, is vt1 still zooming 
out into space? will I be able to see the top few lines of 'top'? 

the nice thing about fbmngplay is that it can easily be told to stop ;)
why not simply make the console a file or fifo, then "tail -f <file> | 
text_render_app -d /dev/fb0" as soon as init can fire it off?

there seems to be a mailing list at bootsplash.org, maybe we should be there 
instead.

http://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bootsplash-discussion


-- 
Rob Couto
rpc@cafe4111.org
Rules for computing success:
1) Attitude is no substitute for competence.
2) Ease of use is no substitute for power.
3) Safety matters; use a static-free hammer.
--

Re: Make the init-process look like the StarWars Credits

[Javier Fernandez-Ivern]

Rob Couto wrote:

> AFAICT, that would be both excellent and terrible at the same time. using hw 
> accel makes the process lighter on CPU and looks great but ridiculously 
> intense on the coder... i mean, who could you recruit to take X11 vid drivers 
> and mutate them into kernel code? you'd need 3D code that belongs to Mesa, 
> DRI code that belongs to whatever X module and the matching kernel module, 
> possibly agpgart, and so on. by the time it's 3D, you aren't using the 
> framebuffer code, you've taken the GUI and moved it into the kernel --- hello 
> Win32. That's if you did it smart and made it modular enough to have other 
> purposes, i.e. X11 overdrive... then X needs to know about it, or at least 
> the DRI module involved, and then it's either they trip over one another or X 
> gets cut down to just the libs and network activity. then maybe the kernel 
> begins with X which starts your xterms fullscreen on vt1-6. all the time it's 
> faster and loads sooner. and along with it, you get the legendary stability 
> of a MS slop'erating system. to have that much for one brief piece of 
> eyecandy is a little silly. and when the booting's done, is vt1 still zooming 
> out into space? will I be able to see the top few lines of 'top'? 

I think you're overcomplicating the issue.  You certainly don't need any 
3D code to get a star-wars like scroll going.  You can make a 2D 
transform to make the fonts _look_ like they're scrolling out into 
space.  As a matter of fact, wouldn't simply transforming the 
rectangular viewport into a trapezoid do the trick?  You could then 
frame this with a starry bitmap, or whatever.

This doesn't sound like it would require any massive hacking (although 
I'll readily confess that I haven't looked into the code.)

-- 
Javier Fernandez-Ivern

Re: Make the init-process look like the StarWars Credits

[Rob]

On Saturday 10 January 2004 06:02 am, you wrote:

> I think you're overcomplicating the issue.  You certainly don't need any
> 3D code to get a star-wars like scroll going.  You can make a 2D
> transform to make the fonts _look_ like they're scrolling out into
> space.  As a matter of fact, wouldn't simply transforming the
> rectangular viewport into a trapezoid do the trick?  You could then
> frame this with a starry bitmap, or whatever.
>
> This doesn't sound like it would require any massive hacking (although
> I'll readily confess that I haven't looked into the code.)

i know,  i'm a pessimist seeing things way too negatively. not trying to knock 
a guy senseless for his 3d suggestion, i just got carried away. sorry...

of course you wouldn't _need_ actual 3D code, so you can leave mesa out. it's 
just the issue of HW accel vs. software making things really hard to do 
without engineering a new DRI-like fb, it seems. and that new fb has other 
(ab)uses... one thing leads to another.

and what youre describing... that's quite like the hacked fb fullscreen splash 
code i'm suggesting. but i'm not realizing that a little code can draw a lot 
of things. thus it probably _could_ all fit in the kernel (except gfx) and 
run instantly (but only unitl init is through booting to the default 
runlevel, i hope?)

-- 
Rob Couto
rpc@cafe4111.org
Rules for computing success:
1) Attitude is no substitute for competence.
2) Ease of use is no substitute for power.
3) Safety matters; use a static-free hammer.
--