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Date: Tue, 16 Dec 2008 22:46:58 +0200
From: "Blue Swirl" <blauwirbel@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 0/3] Add BIOS splash image support
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References: <1229440810-12394-1-git-send-email-Laurent.Vivier@bull.net>
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To: Anthony Liguori <anthony@codemonkey.ws>
Cc: bochs developers <bochs-developers@lists.sourceforge.net>, qemu-devel@nongnu.org, kvm developers <kvm@vger.kernel.org>

On 12/16/08, Anthony Liguori <anthony@codemonkey.ws> wrote:
> Blue Swirl wrote:
>
> > 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.
> >
>
>  You need it to be consistent on the SDL/VNC display.

Oh, I didn't consider the VNC case. Then it may be difficult for the
GUI to manage the boot screen.

>  Modern BIOSes have splash screens.  I don't see why our BIOS shouldn't have
> one too.
>
> >  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.
> >
> >
>
>  Yeah, having QEMU render to the VGA directly is a bit ugly.  It would be
> nicer if the BIOS actually rendered the image but I'm not sure I think we
> should reject the patch just because it doesn't.

Actually this way the image can be in full color even if the emulated
device was an EGA in text mode.