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Making Linux Booting Pretty
LinuxNews.pl writes: "Remember why you compiled your framebuffer into kernel? Of course!
Because of the fblogo -- great penguin image on startup :)
Now you can update your fblogo and create a graphical startup, just
like in Windows. There are few themes (one is for Debian!)
Check out the whole story on Linuxnews.pl" You can get more info on the Linux Progress Page from their website -- that's not to say, of course, that streaming text isn't pretty in its own special way -- but eyecandy always counts for something. (Can anyone point to a good runs-under-Linux way to change the startup logo in the BIOS, as well, similar to this method that Windows users can use to update the "Energy Star" logo? We're well on our way to a hyper-custom boot process ...)
I'm sorry, but I have to question the mental state of anyone who helps mod that up. It's an opinion. Some people will look at this and say, "Ooh, great" and others will say "Ugh, no thanks."
There's no insight there--just opinionated blabbering.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
Thank you for totally a complete mis-representing what I said.
You see this as a religious war. It isn't. You try to peg me as a zealot, I am not.
Has it ever occured to you that some of us that use Unix (or Windows) don't do so for religious reasons? Has it ever occured to you that some of us actually enjoy the operating system that we choose because we understand it and enjoy using it? And, have you ever stopped to think that just because we defend one doesn't mean we can't understand the need for others and new and different things.
Personally, my favorite operating system is BeOS, but I can't use it on a daily basis because it doesn't have the applications available for it. So, I am a Unix/Unix clone user. Windows doesn't make sense to me, but for those that it does, I say let them use it in peace.
Just because I only spoke of the two operating systems doesn't mean that I totally disregard all others. In fact, I am quite happy to try any OS that comes my way. I probably enjoy change a lot more than others. But for business purposes, Unix serves my needs. Forgive me if I actually enjoy using what I already have. If I found something that served my needs better, I would take it. But at the moment, I am satisfied with what I have. Not that I don't occassionally wish for more, but you work with what you've got.
BTW, nice job of getting pissed off about nothing. Your attempt to peg me as a zealot was quite humorous. This whole religious fervor that exists around the operting system issue just seems like such non-sense. It's just a computer operating system. It's not that important. And if you think it is, then please, take a vacation.
I support everyone's right to choose whatever operating system they wish. I spoke of the two most common because it is assumed that they are the most important, and that for some reason one must become more and more like the other (remember the old "better Unix than Unix" line?). Both can exist as they are, as can several other operating systems. AtheOS, Plan 9, or even the variations on the Linux kernel that have started coming out that aren't really Unix based. Good luck to all of them. I love variety.
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Well, in the case of a bootup screen I would hope to god that it is something that is put in via the boot configuration program, not something in the kernel. (Lilo or grub should allow this, right?)
The type of things that really make me shudder in fear is when people start saying that all of X should be put into kernel-space. Oh god, now that would be the last thing you would want to do. X locks? So does your box. Great idea guys.
But, for those hard-core gamers I don't see a problem in making an X module in the kernel that remains "optional". But I fear in this rush to embrace the Windows mentality of the average computer user we will slowly remove the idea of having "optional" things in the Linux kernel. I hope I'm wrong, but my paranoia has rarely been proven wrong lately.
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I haven't tried this yet, I'd thought about it a few months ago when I was messing with it, but never did anything. Someone suggested that one could replace the logo with a penguin.
If you look at the screenshot, the bottom of the screen says starting gdm-- so I'd guess it already does do this.
M
GROGGS: alive and well and living in
Former microsoft users. It's a habit that is hard to get out of.
"Yup...been using the puter for 4 hours, must press ctrl-alt-del now"
Why are the two exlusionary? Why can't you have a beautiful bootup screen that has a window that scrolls the bootup messages? You get a nice looking bootup, and the useful information.
In fact why can't we add in sound to the bootup process? A good deep sci-fi voice would inform the user during the booting process:
"Your sound device has been configured and is online."
"Now configuring video interfaces."
"Video has been optimized for maximum speed/resolution/?."
"Now configuring hard drive interfaces"
"Maximum boot count reached. Checking disk for possible errors."
"All disk have valid filesystems."
"Hard drives have been optimized for maximum performance"
"Web server has been started"
"Networking file system is online."
"Unable to mount a network filesystem. Bootup will continue. Please review log files."
etc.
Completely and totally useless waste of electricity, but it would give the newbies out there the feeling that their computers were smarter than the Windows boxes ("Heh, my computer tells me what it is doing."), and a nice reassuring feeling that everything is working. It would also make the bootup 'feel' faster (though it would actually be slower), and it would let me do something else during bootup and still be informed if something went wrong.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
In some segements of the Linux community, there seems to be an irrational penis-envy of Windows, which engenders an even more irrational desire to make Linux "look" and "feel" just like Microsoft's product.
Why?
Shouldn't we be working on something more important than eye-candy for spreadsheet monkeys? Like maybe defining a new desktop metapahor? Perhaps finding new ways of presenting information and interacting with it? Why is it that Linux's desktop environments seem bent on copying Windows, when they could strike out in bold new directions, taking us where no OS has taken us before?
Okay -- maybe it will be easier to get "the boss" to authorize Linux in the server room if it looks pretty on his desktop. Maybe... but should that dictate expending effort on fins when what's needed is better gas economy? In other words, are we engineering what Linux needs, or are we adding silly stuff just to keep up with Microsoft, or to assauge some false sense of inadequacy?All about me
Waking up to a houseful of smoke because something on the mobo is literally burning is fun, too, and makes for a restful night's sleep.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
1. Your mother should NOT be running linux. How many mom's can barely run windows?!
2. Interoperability has always been an issue, WILL always be an issue with Microsoft. Not because they don't want to cooperate but its called Market Share.. It's business not about interoperability.
3. Open Source doesn't need Linux to become the "preferred methodology"; It needs coders and people willing to develop open source for Windows instead of Linux.
4. Better acceptance on the desktop leads to better acceptance in the boardroom? Don't think so, thats not how it works. It works more like, "What can get the job done; who can be accounted for if anything breaks." With Linux thats not how it is so no matter how many desktops run it if they can't find a redhat or sun to blame it won't be their server solution.
5. I could go on for hours as to why your reasons have little to nothing to do with Linux and/or why your reasons are faulty. Especially the mother one; but you get the point.
Not if you're running linux it isn't. Not unless friends routinely beat you up and leave you for dead, like apmd and apci do.
I guess you must have skipped the day when they taught your class how to spell "grammar".
If you looked at the project at all you would see that if you set it up properly, the boot up messages are still displayed on tty2
This does appear to be the case. It displays the image on virtual terminal 2, and the boot messages remain on terminal 1. It shows warnings and errors with an icon, and if you care for the details, just switch to terminal 1.
First of all, this isn't an official part of
Linux, it's just some fellow doing it as a
goof to satisfy his buddy. He does some
very minimal theme support and releases it
into user-land under GPL in case someone
else might get a kick out of it. Isn't the
ability to do _that_ part of the beauty of
Linux?
Along with the "eyecandy" afficionados, I
think the main branch of folks who will
be appreciative of this would be the
embedded-Linux developers. There is quite
a push towards bringing Linux into things
like kiosks and consumer devices, and the
coders would very much need to customize
and "prettyfy" the boot process in order
to sell Linux to the suits (well, that and
fast-boot journaling filesystems like
reiserfs.)
If it took a minute for your car to start, and car manufacturers had the ability to display a "Welcome to Toyota.. car initializing" message on your display (er, windshield), they would. Hell, they'd probably sell advertising space. (Shit, I should patent that)
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Sound like what Corel did, which SGI did many years ago
Read the FAQ as to why this does not happen. Wait for a couple of hours they will be back up.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
So get cracking.
"But I'm not a coder; I just want l33t stuff done!" you cry. Tough. Most people who develope stuff for Linux do it because they want to. Want to go cry to someone because they didn't write what *you* wanted them to? I'm sorry, I missed seeing your name on the paystub. Oh, yeah, the developer you whined to works for free.
"But that's not fair! I'm a Linux user and you're copping a l33t3r-than-thou attitude!" Well, again, tough. So are you. You want something cool, you don't want to work on it...you want sympathy? Well, I can sympathize with not being able to code it, because I'm no good at coding 3D stuff, but you don't see me bitching and moaning about how cool stuff I want done that I can't possibly help with isn't getting done.
Get over it. People work on what they want to when they work for free. It's a neat little hack and if you don't like it, ignore it.
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
If you're interested, take a look at the work of the folks at the Open BIOS project. They're seem to be mainly talk at this point, but the wishlist is acting as a discussion group right now and there's an ongoing debate between lots of features and a minimalist approach.
I'll admit that I'm a graphical weenie (personally, I'd prefer a Mac-like experience from the get-go), but if more developers got involved, we could all have our choice.
Uhh, because they can make money supporting it? Because we are all sick of dealing with Microsoft? Because Linux is more stable and cheaper than Embedded NT? Because it will make the world a better place? You NEED A REASON? What kind of geek needs a reason?
Don't you get it? This is perfect for applications where an engineer designs a system, puts it together, and sends the whole thing to consumers who doesn't know anything about computers.
Computers as Applicances. That is what most end users want. You turn it on, it works, you get your email and check cnn.com, and you turn it off.
That is what you want if you are selling and supporting them. You do not want people to dick around and call in to tech support saying:
"I plugged in your system and now my TV has a lot of weird looking white and black text go by really fast when I turn it on. I can't read it all, and it looks confusing? Is my system broken? Should I take it back to the store?"
(shudder). No way. A pretty little logo is the way to go.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
You can modify your rc.* scripts to talk to the graphical boot program. Or, you can switch to an alternate console to read the entire message set (default install puts traditional messages on /dev/tty2).
I installed it last week (patched against a 2.2.17 kernel, BTW. Why not 2.2.18? I have to patch for reiser and ide, and couldn't remember where the ide patches are/were) and it worked fine. It flows quite nicely into XDM.
It's a fun little thing. I'm waiting for a MacOS (Circa 6.0.7) startup screen. Instead of adding those little text messages, add some marching icons.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
My parents used to play that trick on me when I was a kid. I was a TV junkie and would go into the living room when the TV was on. They'd carefully turn on the TV when I was in my room playing (with the doors closed to keep from bugging them too much) and I'd hear the whine off the picture tube. They still don't believe me when I say I can hear it, and I'm 25 now. :-)
Stating on Slashdot that I like cheese since 1997.
I remember the first time I booted windows95. The first thing I cried out is "Where is all the bootup information??" . From beeing readily available before, now most of it was hidden.
I don't want a penguin displayed during the bootup. I want the information, as it reveals if something isn't the way it should be, without having to fiddle with logging and other bullshit.
Eye candy is nice, but not when it removes possibly Very Important Information.
No penguin during bootup for me. I want the kernel info.
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"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
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"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Kamzik
You're years out of date. Modern linux distros intended for desktop use (Mandrake in particular) DEFAULT to a GRAPHICAL logon. The user never _Has_ to see a shell prompt, once installed + configured (and note that 80% of windows users don't install or configure their own boxes beyond trivial stuff like the desktop background)
You're joking right?
:(
1. Write your own goddamn driver if you want it that bad or complain to the hardware vendor don't fucking give me that drivel about you want hardware support.
2. You want a commercial package to run under Linux but its not a native port to linux? Write the goddamn authors of the package; create one yourself or use VMWARE.
3. Tech support for your friends? They use windows what kind of tech support are you talking about?
Linux is more useable than windows but usability without stability is stupidty.
I must me bored?; No, I must want to know whats going on with my system. Granted I don't look at the messages everyday but its good to see if I add new hardware or a new chip or a new dimm that it is infact working.
The "warning" or "failure" doesn't say kernel panic or it doesn't tell me how much ram I have, does it, no.. good I didn't think so. I'd have to switch consoles to see my boot messages, waste of time, waste of space, plain ole waste its just not needed.
How about before you address anyone else on slashdot about linux you uninstall win4lin and install linux. Maybe then you won't have to show sad faces about not having a patch yet
Isn't the beauty of linux supposed to be how rarely it needs to be restarted? As much as this sounds just like eyecandy, it's actually got the potential to be a bigger deal than you'd think. Especially for the whole linux as an OS for everyone movement. Think about the average consumer that doesn't care what their computer is doing when booting up, they just want it running. A nice graphical progress bar (something along the lines of the macos startup deal), but maybe just a tad bit more geeky just to keep it interesting. That would mean more to most people than text flying by faster than you can read it.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
If boot up messages intimidate them, wait until they login and are staring at a bash prompt... I think a pretty splash screen is the last thing to worry about when trying to make *nix more newbie-friendly.
But, whatever, it's a little eye-candy... my FreeBSD box has a nice boot splash too :)
"Oh twap!"
I'm booting without a monitor... and mouse... and keyboard...
In fact, the only things I have hooked up to my Linux box are power and ethernet.
Unfortunately, I'd guess that most people will start using it exactly when one of the big distros adopts it as standard. Oh well; they already have a Debian theme.
And in case that page is as hugely slow to load for you as it is for me, here's Google's cache of it. The process is also described at:
GROGGS: alive and well and living in
Actually, on a x86 machine, it is possible to change your BIOS screen's logo, unfortunately, I believe its bios dependent, and there is no collection of howto's that lists several bioses (biosi?). A google search with your bios and a few other keywords ("change splash screen" or "change image" seems to work) should find it if its possible and a common bios.
Well we are on the subject...
To change Microsoft Windows startup/shutdown screen, do a search for logo.sys (boot), logow.sys (please wait...), and logos.sys (its now safe to...). Back them up, and then replace them with a 256 color bitmap with dimensions of 320 (width) x 400 (height). To remove the annoying startup screen (like I did) just download Tweak UI which can be found at Microsoft's website (its one of their powertools, and a free download). Tweak UI does a couple of other nice tricks, its worth hunting down if you need to use windows. www.regedit.com has a list of other things to customize with windows.
Under linux, I wouldn't want to do a change like this, the information is rather useful that's displayed, and I'd hate for the dang image to cover up the error messages, it seems rather counter-productive.
The KDE and Debian ones seem fairly cool. However I'd have to say that the boot screen for Windows Whistler leaves them all in the dust in terms of coolness ;) (Plus Whistler's XDM login type screen implimentation is really neat looking)
How long before we see distributions package their own boot screen with the OS install?
Mandrake's graphical boot would be nicer if it didn't look like all the graphics were designed by a third-grade art class on Ecstasy using MS Paint. Happy pastel-colored penguins everywhere you look.
Also, it'd be nice if the runlevel menu worked with my USB trackball, and the graphical shutdown actually indicated when it was done shutting down.
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And I remember the "fun" I had running an end-around Mandrake 6.1 removing that fuckin' thing after install using rpm. Why in the hell is that cartoonish Tux soooooooo essential to the proper functioning of my server? Hmmmm?
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
"Sure, in the perfect world nobody would be intimidated, and everybody would understand implicity that they really don't need to pay attention to most of those messages in most cases."
Nice logic about 'perfection' but, in such a 'perfect world', you simply wouldn't need the messages.
You might want them, but you wouln'd need them.
Caldera, Corel, Storm, and possible others all have something of a boot splash. Corels is pretty darn blinky. You get a spinning disk and minimal messages. Caldera is a mostly a purdly looking window that displays the same boot text in a framed window. Storm had a rather nice one. The boot messages are in a smaller (1/4 screen size) window. Everything else is general blinkiness.
This project looks nice. But yes, sometimes you do need to see what services started, failed, etc on boot. Beyond that, dmesg will cover you once your system is booted.
I'm going to go back in my box and will think within the limits of my box: MS Sucks Linux Good I read too much Slashdot.
Exactly. What is needed is the appearance of an old circa 1969 terminal displaying various encouraging messages, in a light-green text on a dark green background,
"Powering up computer.....
Spinning drives......
Atomic batteries to power.....
Turbines to speed......."
accompanied by the sound of a dot-matrix printer emitted from the PC speaker, so they can identify with their favorite hi-tech movies and TV shows, ie. "Eraser."
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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
1. I can read most of the important flanks as they go by. I don't know why you cant and I run linux on a p3-800.
/dev/hda parition has fucked up inodes, Right? If you could show me some code on how you did that I'd appreciate it. Thanks; infact just submit it as a patch.
2. You obviously never add hardware or touch your computer. What is it? A dell?
3. Its a kernel patch; fine I never objected to that. I objected to it being put into the kernel.
4. It's nice to be able to use dmesg when your kernel hasn't paniced; or for that matter your
Why are "office suites" the supposed be-all, end-all application that we all need to lead happy and productive lives? For many users, these office suites are among the most underused applications on their desktops. I imagine many Linux users like me would agree. So it's not hard to spend more time customizing your desktop than you do using an office suite, now is it?
Frankly, I'm just getting sick of hearing about how we need office suites to be able to keep our dicks up long enough to get a woman off. Please. WOrd processing and Spreadsheets just aren't that useful.
Gcc and emacs are.
What Linux needs (not for you and me of course, but for our Moms) is idiot lights, some way of changing the boot text messages into pretty icons showing that various system have or haven't started -- doesn't Beos do something like this?
What's a sig?
Computers are meant to run around-the-clock. I don't understand this reluctance to have 'em always on.
What kind of idiot wouldn't want James Earl Jones announcing the steps of the boot process?
Now that would be smashing. I'd have my box boot up with a baby cry that ominously transforms into a Darth Vader-like behind-the-mask voice with the first words being: "You're my father!"
But seriously, voice feedback would be great, esp. if Linux got there first. Text-to-voice has existed for over a decade, so what is needed is a Vader-like voice profile and a kernel module taking control early on.
Come to think of it, I wouldn't mind having Dear Vader read me my mail aloud, and web pages too.
For Windows addicts, the only "choice" of voices available should naturally be the whiny, high-pitched nasal output of their own Great Chairman.
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
Remenber that many users don't speak English, and know nothing in computer science.
For these users, the boot messages are plain garbage..
As long as distros, gives you the ability to turn off this feature, I don't mind at all.
Ask yourself if you were installing a computer for your grandma, wouldn't you turn this feature on?
So as long as you may turn it on/off easily, this a good feature.
good stuff, dood.
I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.
I believe that the ideal situation is a little of both. Like everytime I boot my Nextstation. I get a pretty screen with a box in the middle that tells me what services are starting and other info. Just my $0.02
Machines dedicated to a specific purpose can just boot up and work. What we have are *general purpose* computers. They can do more than one thing. They are complex.
Now, if what you want is ease of use, set up a linux box for your secretary to just boot a word processor and nothing else. It will all go pretty easily.
Want flexibility? Complexity is the price that you pay. This is unavoidable.
Btw, if the operating system could automatically fix problems, it would. Do you think that linux punts problems to the user because it doesn't feel like bothering? unrecoverable problems are just that - you can't recover from them. It's kind of like expecting people who have been shot to heal themselves without a doctor. The doctor is needed precisely because they can't.
Oh, and please come up with some better analogy than a car. A car allows you precisely four functions:
-Turn the front wheels left
-Turn the front wheels right
-Turn the drive shaft faster
-Switch gears (front, park, reverse are the only common ones)
Do you want a computer that allows you to do four things? It will be as simple as a car. Do you want a computer that allows you to do the 10,000 things that a modern computer allows you to do? It will be more complex.
Tools are made to be used, not to be learned. That's why we have a specific brand of tools called training tools.
Here, let's go for an analogy - what martial art is going to win in a fight? Punching wildly (easy to learn, just start flailing and you've got it), or Aikido?
Computers are tools, but they are complex tools. A lawn mower is simple because it's job is simple. There never were lawn mowers with 300 buttons and 200 levers that required years to master. A car never required weeks of training to get the hang of. That should tell you something.
They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- C. Sagan
Interesting... and just what did you put in your named database to cause a kernel panic?
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So Judge Jackson has a monopoly on Microsoft cases? I think they should split him up.
I personally do prefer a boot logo, and will install it asap, but me and you seem have to admit that it has a certain disadvantage.
Imagine your machine goes into a deadlock while booting, how do you figure out what the problem is?
Of course, you can boot again with an old known to work kernel, then check the saved messages.
But I find this slightly less inconvenient than just taking a look at the now freezed screen.
However, this rare situation doesn't hold me back to beautify my workspace. (Gont anyone some plants around?)
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
So, what yer saying is...
When ya set up a server, ya build a tank.
Metal seats, olive drab - big and powerful, but not exactly luxury.
When ya set up yer own machines, ya build a gold-plated lowrider tank. (Just like in that rap video...you know the one.)
Still big and powerful, but with overstuffed velvet seats, furry trim and 15" subs in the back.
There's no real point to this reply, I just saw a good chance to reference the gold-plated tank
(Which I think is one of the most important innovations of the 20th century. Only a gold-plated lowrider 747 could be better)...
--K
And why shouldn't it?
Even though this was not one of the original poster's assertions, he may want to do it for his clients, i.e., wants to sell his own I-opener
Perhaps we're sick of using Windows for reasons other than loooks, how about that?
Embedded system is a broad concept. Many Linux based consumer gadgets may not need a boot screen, but that doesn't mean them all should not have one.
I'm wondering why adding HTTP static service to look good on benchmarks is a worthy goal and this thing is not. As long as you can (ah, that word again) compile it out, I don't see how that can be bad.
Brushing aside the little fact that Linux, FreeBSD, UNIX [TM] and ITS (oh wait, that was only a typo, right? right?) are different systems with different design goals, which were not laid out by you, and which do not include, I'm fairly confident, "not being intended for the dumb", I have to remind you that "dumb" is a very broad stroke to paint people with. A historian who is a very accomplished scholar has no "right" to use Linux, just because she haven't got the time to learn all the command line option to find(1)? I find that kind of lofty arrogance preposterous and irritating.
Look at the history of what Unix and Unix like systems have been used for, then speak intelligently.
Ok, so read up on your history. In case you're too lazy for that here's the deal in a nutshell: UNIX[TM] was designed for a computer whose manufacturer is now defunct, by a company which is now split in atoms, so that their office employees could write manuals with it and their engineers could play games. It was designed from the start so that end users could use it. Of course, the end user at AT&T's offices in the '70s was used to terminals. That's not the case now.
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Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
Of course, FreeBSD already has this and has had it for some time now - since before FreeBSD 3.1 which was released some time ago.
FreeBSD users can have a look at the process for utilising a splash screen by looking here
http://www.baldwin.cx/splash/
Guess you've never read the kernel source.. Infact I'll take what you've said as a quote. Why don't you read LPP's source.
Boot messages aren't so great anyway. Wouldn't you rather have a concise report of what's working and what's not working?
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Patrick Doyle
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
If the mainstream Linux distros offered such a feature, I think it would be another feather in the cap of Linux in general. Sure, it seems silly, but once Linux can do everything Windoze can (and of course a whole lot more) then it will be taken seriously by the consumer and business markets.
Yes, it may sound silly to say that a "dumbing-down" feature might make people take Linux more seriously, but I think it is sadly the case.
...about the splash screen hiding the boot info, try emulating FreeBSD's behavior. Hit space while the splash screen is up, and there's your scrolly messages again. The selection of a splash screen is done in the bootloader too, controlled by a module the bootloader loads (the kernel is loaded the same way as any other module, at least interface-wise, it can even unload a kernel and use a different one).
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I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
- A.P.
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* CmdrTaco is an idiot.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
I'd argue that stability is not what drives people to use Linux, otherwise bug reports on unstable kernels and apps would be very rare. Thank God most people are not like you.
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Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
the point of the article is the you can get a graphical framebuffer display to print out all of the startup info rather than having a text output...
why? because you can get more lines and columns on the screen AND you can show pretty pictures ALSO...
-- Betting on the survival of the media industry is a serious risk. I advise investing elsewhere.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
> Why do computer people always use cars as an analogy when explaining computer hardware? > ...
> The problem is that someone will say something general like "high RPMs means the car goes faster"
Fits perfectly: in computer-speak, "high RPMs" means you have a bloated Red Hat system :)
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O Moo.
Speaking of irix... Check this out. Very pretty irix-like desktop for linux on intel.
BTW Irix does most of it's pretty stuff in prom, which unfortunately makes it almost completely un-customizable. Gets old fast if you reboot a lot (as in, a dozen times a night to test I2 scsi adapters).
Neh
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been
When my Linux server is booting, I know when something's wrong by how long the [OK] takes to appear, so even the [OK] is useful.
Man! How did I miss that - did /. report the open-sourcing of Star Office. Surely that is very significant - I was very impressed by the applications when I first saw them but could not stand the stupid "desktop" that ate up the screen. Any piece of software that doesn't allow its windows to be neatly arranged next to other apps is next to useless as far as I'm concerned. If some sensible development work is being done on this suite then it should blow everything else out of the water.
I work for a charitable organisation that is 'locked in' to MS Office 2000 but we're really running out of cash to support it. If I could move to something like Star Office, and look at jettisoning Win98 clients entirely I would be a very happy man indeed.
Someone should make an over complication patch, that adds more scrolling text flying by. Possibly animated graphics doing important looking stuff with text flying by like "connecting to FBI database...."... Just a big Hollywood sensationalized boot up process. All making it look like you have to be a rocket scientist just to run linux. Something to make all of your friends go "Oooooooooooo you must be smart". The only thing is I'd probably bust up laughing each time I turned my machine on :)
---
The problem with Linux booting isn't the text, its the fact that the text is butt-ugly and poorly formated. ReiserFS even does the no-no of running over a line (which you really don't want to do for a status messege.) If the bootup text was succinct (who cares about every single device enumerated unless you specify a verbose boot?) well formated, and well-organized (system messages, fs messeges, etc in order, and no stupid stuff like saying that the messege is coming from usb.c instead of the usb subsystem) then I think many more people would appreciate the Linux text boot.
;)
Of course, if it booted as fast as BeOS, the whole splash screen issue becomes more or less irrelevant
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Just a few reasons why i would like to see linux get a foothold:
Either that or you turn off your computer when you arent using it. We are some that dont like huge powerbills and the sound of fans while we sleep.
Why not? I would still use it even if windows was more stable than linux. Stability is important but usability is more important.
Wow, you must really be bored. I usually fetch some coffee while my machine boots up. And if i have to read all the messages to see if something goes wrong well then i think that is a flaw.
Did you actually bother looking at the product? The following is a quote from the documentation:
And further down they say this:
So you still get your boot messages if you want them.I havent tried this thing myself yet but i sure am going to. Just too bad win4lin doesnt have a 2.2.18 patch yet :(
that's the next step, flash kernel + gui into bios.
How we know is more important than what we know.
One of the main reasons I use Linux is so that I do not need to reboot. The last time I rebooted was for the 2.2.18 kernel, and the time before that was because I moved to Champaign. The bootup screen does not need to be ``pretty'' for me, but rather all those diagnostics are much more useful, since I can then find out if I forgot to plug in something.
The *only* change that should happen in the current *nix boot sequences is to ad Majel Barrret's voice announcing key checkpoints , such as "going multiuser" and daemon initialization . . . :)
What kind of idiot wouldn't want James Earl Jones announcing the steps of the boot process?
"This is Multiuser"
"Now initializing X Windows"
"Restarting the system"
"System Halted"
I'm sure with all the work he's done we could piece together snippets of movies and voiceovers he's done. Remember, he was in "Cabin in the Sky" way back in the forties.
Besides that, its just not elegant. I don't change the hardware on my machine every other day, and after I know the thing is setup correctly, I really would rather look at a nice bootup screen than see that useless text scroll by.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Linux running on non-desktop systems, like a handheld for example, do not necessarily map to console to the framebuffer. All the boot time messages exist on a serial port or something where a terminal may connect for development purposes.
In this case, placing some meaningful graphics on the screen is not only much prettier than the blank screen: it is a critical way of communicating to the user that the system is booting!
Anybody want a peanut?
Some Honda's emit a series of clicks when all the systems start up properly.
*NIX is now officially too flexible...
That's just crazy, plain and simple crazy.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
> I remember the first time I booted windows95.
> The first thing I cried out is "Where is all the
> bootup information??" . From beeing readily
> available before, now most of it was hidden.
It's still all there. All you had to do was hit ESC and you could see all of it. But let's be honest, how often do you need to? Unless something's wrong there's no reason to watch the same messages over and over again.
> I don't want a penguin displayed during the
> bootup. I want the information, as it reveals if
> something isn't the way it should be, without
> having to fiddle with logging and other
> bullshit.
Fine. Here's an idea, don't load the patch. Then you'll have all your purist kernel messages, and the rest of us can customize our boot process. (BTW, I used that patch in an earlier kernel and it does still show you all the regular kernel messages, it just has Tux in the upper left corner).
Besides, there's always `dmesg`.
> Eye candy is nice, but not when it removes
> possibly Very Important Information.
I don't get it. How is it removing information? Just because you don't have to see it when the system boots doesn't mean it's missing, has been removed, or otherwise taken away from you. If you'd actually investigated some of this instead of instantly deciding it's evil and ranting against it, you'd realize that it's not as bad as you think it is.
Hell for some people it could be quite enjoyable. Think of all the people who use GTK+, enlightenment, Windowmaker, IceWM, or Blackbox themes. Now they can theme their kernel boot sequence. Choice.
Improvise, adapt, and overcome.
Why is everyone so convinced that Linux has to be prettied up, promoted, and made palatable to the masses? If people want graphical boot screens, let them use an OS designed for people who like graphical boot screens. Everyone seems to think they're RedHat's unpaid marketing department, and that it's imperative some greater purpose be fulfilled by getting people to use an OS that's probably not the best one for them in the first place.
The other thing that's "vital for desktop acceptance" is an office suite of the caliber of MS Office 2000, which isn't going to happen unless they decide to port it - and it's a lot more vital than covering up kernel messages.
-lx
I have read the kernel source... And you still have no idea what you're talking about.
Ranessin
Take a look at BeOS's splash screen. It has a series of icons that light up as the system reaches certain milestones on the way to getting the system booted.
Admittedly, it's not much, but think of what it could be - a fully customizable graphical splash screen with kernel messages. (affectionately known as a fcgsswkm)
I don't like nasty plaintext. I like fancy chiclet icons. I can make them give me just as much information as the normal linux bootinfo. Now that I think of it, I can probably make it give me more, since with a splash screen, the screen can be broken up into different areas that show the info for different kinds of stuff - I especially want one that displays each and every error and nothing else so I don't have to sort out what is an error and what isn't. On the bottom i'll have puzzle piece shaped icons pop up for any daemons that load, and above their icons will be icons for what services are started by those daemons. In a little window at the top left of the screen all the text will scroll past just like it normally does with my current bootprocess.
*sigh* It'd be nice if people would read at least the README before bashing something. Per the installation instruction, you add: append="console=/dev/tty2 CONSOLE=/dev/tty2" to your /etc/lilo.conf, which makes the kernel write its messages to the second TTY. So now while it's booting with the pretty splash screen and progress bar, if you notice a warning or failure (yes, the splash screen shows warnings and failures as the appropriate icon), you can hit [ALT]-[F2] and switch to the real startup screen.
Problem solved.
Read my stuff.
I keep hearing about this FreeBSD splash screen. I don't have it on 4.2-RELEASE. What gives?
Linux now is going to have a splash screen? If anything, I kind of like the way FreeBSD and Sun starts up with the rotating CURSOR Oh well... There goes the neighborhood...
:) jpg?, etc...
Anyone know what type of format this is going to be??? Is it going to be a bmp? gif? (oops, not gif... someone might SUE us
Sarcasm is the recourse of a weak mind...
--
Yep, especially that "reverse" variant they put in HP calculators. D'oh!
Actually that's exactly how it works, except the boot screen is on console 2, and the messages are on console 1.
-matt
LinuxBIOS LinuxBIOS Home also posted last June on Slashdot here at LinuxBIOS Project will give you the ability to have any startup logo you wish, allow for faster reboots, better system configuration and also get rid of all the obsolete BIOS support for things like DOS.
Quidquid latine dictum sit altum viditur
I once read a review of Linux by a non-technical writer. Believe it or not, the boot messages scrolling past were irksome to this reviewer, and she asked someone why they were necessary. The reply was "Oh, engineers like that sort of thing". This answer, apparently, summed up everything that was wrong with Linux for this particular reviewer.
Well, of course, if her computer went wrong, I'm sure she'd be glad if the support personell she called had something to go on -- but this does raise a point. Part of making Linux appeal to the masses (if that's your bag -- by no means does everyone even care if the masses use Linux) is to make every stage pretty: prettify X (with Gnome, E etc), prettify logons (gdm vs xdm), prettify the boot process. Many people *are* that shallow.
So: this is a good thing. I'd advocate putting it in the sock kernel; as long as there's a way to switch to the proper boot messages when you need to see them.
--
Or even to have the option to press Escape to toggle between looking at bootup information and the graphical bootup screen.
I turn off my computer (*gasp*) every couple of days (*double-gasp*) and I can't remember the last time I ran into a problem at boot up. A little eye candy would be nice.
You can ensure that they never need see a bash prompt by booting straight into X. On RH systems I believe you can do this by elevating the system into runlevel 5 instead of 3 on bootup.
I believe, as others have stated that this change, and other like it is a good thing. We ought to ensure that it is possible to hide all the confusing stuff under the hood, so your granny can turn on your Linux box without feeling intimidated by these messages scrolling past, most of which just indicate Linux is booting normally
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
"Linux is better than Windows"
"Linux is better than Macs"
"Oh cool, I can create a graphical startup, just like in Windows!"
huh?
---
Why are "office suites" the supposed be-all, end-all application that we all need to lead happy and productive lives? For many users, these office suites are among the most underused applications on their desktops. I imagine many Linux users like me would agree.
.doc that someone sent me.
Hell yes. At work I have an NT machine with MS Office _and_ StarOffice (Just for the sake of it, I've got Hard Drive space to burn...), and TBH, it has been many many weeks now since I have used either. And even then it was simply to open up a nasty
I've never actually figured out what office apps are for really. I can vaguely understand Word Processing... even had reason to use it on occasion (though I generally use LaTeX), but Spreadsheets completely baffle me. WTF do people actually use spreadsheets for other than aligning a bunch of text/numbers in cute little rows and columns? I'm sure there's something to it, but I've just never had a need to use it, so I honestly don't have the faintest idea.
What do I use? Mathematica, Emacs (for programming in, well, most everything really), and a nice range of custom software we built at the company. Other than that it's just the standard email and web stuff.
So if someone could please explain to me what an office suite is actually useful for, I'll be all ears.
Jedidiah
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
This has nothing to do with a graphical logon screen, this is a graphic that displays very shortly after the kernel boots, making the boot procedure look really cool (see the Matrix theme?).
I've been using the graphical logon screen here and there since Red Hat 5.0, though now I'm a Debian kinda guy.
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
I agree totally. A friend of mine (female, not a geek) recently bought a computer on which every part was labelled "IBM". When it booted, I was horrified to see that when it normally shows the memory checking etc. was a large "IBM" logo.
;)
Then I thought of pressing Delete - and voila! It was in the setup, and I soon found an option that removes the picture. She didn't like it that way, however.
Anyway, I have always in some way admired ID-software games and others that show what they are doing when starting. I guess that's part reason why I love Linux. It doesn't hide things from me.
I doubt, therefore I may be.
I can see using it to explain computer hardware to a non-tech, but techs use it to debate arguments like Mac vs. PC, etc.
The problem is that someone will say something general like "high RPMs means the car goes faster" (or something equivalent) when trying to explain why their computer is faster than the next guy's. Then someone has to say, "But what about XYZ car that has lower RPM but still goes faster (composite body perhaps)."
Then they proceed to argue about the fine points on RPM vs. speed rather than debating the original subject. See some of the other replies to this post's parent for some examples. There's already one.
The car analogy is obviously flawed -- you need to use generalizations to relate two distinct, different technologies. Analogies are intended to let you understand the problem/issue/tech/whatever in a different view, one which you were not aware of. This should aid in your understanding of the subject.
That is an excellent analogy when you compare it to computers/technology, yet see how the specifics are debated and the original analogy and intent are lost in the scuffle...
Analogies are used to explain an aspect of something by comparing that aspect to something separate that can be easily understood. Take it at that and stop bickering.
Who cares?
Linux will always have options to suit all.
What OS is "best" for these people that want a comfortable computing experience and why is Linux not suitable or elligible to be made suitable?
War crimes, torture, lies, illegal spying... Would someone give Bush a blowjob, already, so he can be impeached?
Once I get some free time on my hands, I want to create a login screen that features a picture of Tux with one of those cartoon balloons pointed to his mouth. You know, the kind that make it look like the cartoon character just said something. Well, I was only gonna have it say:
"Welcome to XXXX Linux"
Username:
Password:
I don't see why a guy (or gal) couldn't have the same TUX character "say" all the bootup info in his little balloon.
Actually, it wouldn't be that hard to do this, if you have a simple program that can send a wave file to your sound card.
/etc/rc.d/init.d and /etc/rc.d/rc[0-6].d/ directories, then add a "initsound" script to /etc/rc.d/init.d that has something like:
/bin/playwav is the program, and
/etc/runlevel_sound[0-6].wav are the sound files.
/etc/runlevel_sound$runlevel.wav
/etc/rc.d/rc[0-6].d/ directory, add the appropriate symbolic link over to initsound:
../init.d/initsound
Hmmm. If you have the common style of startup script directories with
#!/bin/sh
# "initsound"
# play a sound when entering each run level
# assume
#
/bin/playwav
# end of file
Then in each
S01initsound ->
Something like that should do it. I haven't tested this though. It would be amusing to put in the Windows 2000 startup and shutdown sounds.
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
Torrey Hoffman (Azog)
"HTML needs a rant tag" - Alan Cox
Ever see a Netwinder? When it's fully booted you'll hear "Welcome to Netwinder." Once it's shut down you'll hear a "bloop."
It's actually quite useful when there's no monitor. You'll know when you can log in or remove the power. After seeing this, we implemented startup and shutdown sounds on the servers we sell. They're actually spacey sounds because we couldn't get the PC speaker driver working in the kernel.
It is so obvious that you're a kid.
How old are you? 16?
...and it's not as if Linux users don't already know this. Look how much emphasis is put on theming window managers, widget sets and applications. I bet that in 2000, the total time Linux users spent fiddling with the look of their desktops exceeded the time spent in office suites by a factor of 10.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
[michael@lava michael]$ uptime 1:15pm up 317 days, 1:45, 4 users, load average: 0.02, 0.15, 0.15
Uh... the .pl means Poland, not Perl.
...is not something that can be ignored when trying to get one's grandma to install linux or another OSOS.
Remember that one of the points that Apple is selling more than anything else about OSX is its graphical 'beauty' (something like that at any rate.) Steve and Apple marketing truly expect that the graphical theme they've layered on top of their GUI and *nix OS will draw users. When I worked on a Mac at a certain design firm, one of the most used applications was Kaleidoscope. (If you didn't know, it's a set of extensions that allows for complete skinning of the Mac0S.) Windows 'Themes' were so important that Microsoft took them out of the 'Plus' packs and put them into the Main OS install for both Win9x and 200x. While themes are available for some of the different X GUI's, *compelete* one button customization is just not there yet. While it doesn't add any real usability, this will be a major step towards getting more mainline acceptance (and mainline apps) for Linux or any other OSOS
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
But even with the Eye Candy, the normal init messages would still be visible in another console, (and a prompt as to what Ctrl-Alt combination brought that one up for the distro in question--or maybe make it really easy and use Esc to switch to the boot messages) but the first time something other than "[OK]" came up, the error message could show up on the Pretty Boot screen (and the prompt might change colors).
This is not even that foreign from the SOP for *nix utilities: Most of them output nothing to the console when they did what you asked, only bothering to tell you when something went wrong. (That's why it's called stderr.) A boot process that shows that progress has been made, and only tells the user what went wrong, sounds like a reasonable setup for most people.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Why is everyone so convinced that Linux has to be prettied up, promoted, and made palatable to the masses?
Because the masses have money. Companies like money. Companies that see the prospect of money in Linux on the desktop are more likely to publish Linux ports of their video games, write Linux drivers for their hardware, and offer Linux-compatible ISP services and online media.
I like Linux game, Linux drivers, and Linux compatibility. Any more questions?
There are many more reasons why even the most hardcore, non-gaming, free-software-only Linux user still benefits by "Linux for the masses", though. You may complain that Red Hat is aiming for a Linux distribution a 3 year old can use... but they're not taking away our Perl interpreters and ssh daemons to do it, and eventually that 3 year old may grow up and spend a little time playing around with the compiler himself.
The other thing that's "vital for desktop acceptance" is an office suite of the caliber of MS Office 2000, which isn't going to happen unless they decide to port it.
Of course it isn't. Free software developers could never produce any sort of useful desktop software on their own, certainly not any office programs. That stuff is just too complicated for a bunch of hackers. Why, where would they even start?
I may be just one in a million of people telling you this, but since God knows how you were modded up as insightful, here it goes: don't like it, don't use it. And please don't piss on those who may like it.
--
Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
Let's get the gui up and running before the filesystems are even mounted. Before the harddrive drivers are even initialized! Put the gui in the kernel.
D00D! That is the kewlest way to make Linux like LoseDows! Now if we could just replace the resulting kernel panic with an awesome Blue Screen Of Death, that would be totally rad!!!
There is good reason why Sun, SGI, HP and the rest of the Unix manufacturers stopped doing that years ago. Yeah, it makes the graphics faster, and they start up faster. But in return, a simple graphical glitch takes down the whole damn system. If you want to see something cool sometime, take a copy of GIMP for windows and run it on WinNT. Quite often it takes the whole system down in a blazing blue screen. One little graphical glitch, that's all it takes...
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
For a long time now, I've had my rc.local play a clip of Homer Simpson saying "No time for that now, the computer's starting!" (from the episode where he gets obese and works at home).
I haven't released it because I haven't felt like it's "done", but I've had one of these for years now. It's gone through two revisions and the current one does the following:
;-) to put up service info ala Mac OSX. The fonts are done using FreeType.
;-) I haven't posted any code or screen shots of this (it's a little difficult to take screen shots of =P). So if enough people email me at my address (remove "fear-no-spam.") I'll make some and post them somewhere. Or maybe even post the code.
- Kernel patch switches to KD_GRAPHICS mode on the console and puts up a bitmap
- Program runs from init to show a BlueSteel-themed window with a cute anime girl saying "System Ok"
- A few moments later the splash screen happens, where a big swarm of dots fly around the screen and it kind of morphs on "Welcome to Anime Linux", while playing the Dreamcast sound
- During the boot process I modified my init scripts to print info about what service it is starting, and the console monitor program uses these codes (my own little ANSI codes
- During this whole thing an MP3 is playing that matches the picture put up, and cherry blossoms are falling in the background.
- Yes, I am an anime freak. =P
- During this time you can also hit ENTER and everything stops and you get a little console message window.
- If anything fails, the gfx monitor quits and you get a normal console again
- When it's all done, the monitor unloads and things go back to normal.
At the risk of sounding like a compulsive liar
Cryptic Allusion - New Mac and Dreamcast Games!
Changing the bootup logo is easy:
# cat my_oem-logo.data > /proc/openprom/options/oem-logo /proc/openprom/options/oem-logo\?
# echo true >
Of course, this assumes that you're on a Sun...
There was also news on Yahoo about some discrimination suit against MS, but that's not as important as the Boogie Bass or this. Go linux! wa hooo! With the linux boot up screen, we are one step closer to taking over the desktop!
Well you can stil see all the bootup informations in the second console. I tested in and it works fine and I LIKE IT. I also need and like to see all the informations, but my wife does not. And there are also many people that would like to see nice pinguin logo. I think it is a great kernel patch!! :-)=
Music is a gift from gods!
Whaddya think? How long before this one comes out?
They've sadly removed all trace of it from their current distro, so here it is, in case anyone could find it useful. Also, since I'm on the topic, I also made a very cool bootup sound from the PC speaker, this plays a .au file just as the previous picture is being displayed. The source for this is here. Sadly, this has also been removed from the distribution.
Don't know if either of these still work, let me know (sness@sness.net) if you have any problems with these.
Well, Hemos, I compiled in fb because this way I got a nice 50+ line console at 75 Hz or so, at exactly the same video timing X uses, so my CRT doesn't go *plong* each time I switch between console and X.
But who am I to talk about splash screens and theming. I am the one who hand-crafted a Sawfish theme to make Sawfish look like MacOS 6 or so (very few colors, no pseudo-3D) -- I just wanted the nice keyboard and mouse customization of Sawfish, the rest could've been twm.
Because not everyone is convinced that being on the fringe is all that great, because many think that functionality precludes prettiness and lastly, because perceiving their beloved OS as a good thing they want their non-geek friends and relatives to use it too, without having to become geeks themselves.
Is it such a bad idea after all, that should prompt the same old tired reactions every time something like this is advanced? Is it so terrible to have a nice feature that can be used by non-geeks, but can be switched off by the geeky crowd if it displeases them?
--
Information wants to be beer, or something like that.
I wanna a logo featuring Tux beating down bill gates further as the boot progresses.
"I am a warrior, and information is my weapon..."
No penguin during bootup for me. I want the kernel info.
Guess you haven't looked at the graphical boot, then. Assuming you're talking out-of-the-box Linux, that penguin sits at the top of the screen peacefully, while kernel info and init scripts scroll by.
-
>Text-to-voice has existed for over a decade,
.).
and that's for very loud values of "decade"
ONe otf the things that sticks out most inmy memory of the second west
coast computer faire is the votrax attachment. It connected to a
parallel port, and kept telling passerbys, "My name is vo-trax. I can
say an-y-thing."
Oops, s/parallel/Centronics/ above. It's essentially the same thing,
but the terminology was different then (and they were rarely
bidirectional on the 8 bits . .
You'd have needed a text=>phoneme dictionary, but this was still
shipping technology in the late 70's. If memory serves, it cost
$700 or so . . .
hawk
on my machine, windoze kicks the hell out of linux in boot time. Linux takes probably 4 or 5 times as long. Any way to shorten that would be much more welcomed by me.
________
If you have FreeBSD, check out FreeBSD Splash Screens for how to build what you need into the kernel. There's a few other instructions to follow, too.
I've always wanted change the startup screens on my PC & laptop (mainly so I could be a 1337 #4x0r like those guys (and gals) in 'Hackers') but then I asked myself, when would I see it? I usually only reboot for kernel updates on the PC and my Vaio's suspend mode fixes the issue on the laptop side. I'm not bragging about the stability if Linux, I'm just stating fact, my uptimes at at least 3 months.
Now something that I have thought about that's on my ToDo list (aka project limbo) is a hack to generate a unique terminal font, where the extended characters are remaped to make up 8x8 bit sections of a bitmap of my choice. Then all of my servers that I didn't bother to install X on can have neato non-ascii art penguins at the login prompt on the root console. Then I could gain the fear and respect I crave!
oh well you knwo what they say about fools....
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
Yeah, that's the point. Most of the BIOS update programs are DOS executables on floppies, distributed in binary form by BIOS manufacturers.
The neat thing about Qnxflash was that (a) it runs under a UNIX variant, and (b) source is available.
Remember the goal of the article here -- instead of your PC showing Dell or Compaq's logo fullscreen, you want a picture of Tux ;-)
I have been using Storm Linux (Debian based, developed by Stormix) it does have a very pretty boot screen but at the same time it has a very nice embedded boot messages window. Very pretty and very informative. Not scary.
Why is everyone so convinced that Linux has to be prettied up, promoted, and made palatable to the masses?
Have you ever seen what computers look like in movies? Have you ever seen a very intelligent PhD be scared to death of a console? Intimdataion Factor is a BIG part of computers not being used by people. I think Mac's are much less intimidating then Windows or Linux because they hide all that information. I could get my grandmother using linux for all the things she uses a computer for, except so much of the programmer-oriented information that is presented to you is scary to her. I think that screens like this are GREAT! But I think that they need to be customizable. For instance, I wouldn't mind if I could stick a "Progress Meter" on the top of the screen and still let all the normal scripts go by.
Want to see every step I took to start my company? http://www.rowdylabs.com/blogs/pitchtothegods
It's not just eyecandy. It's a vital step to desktop acceptance. I've installed linux for non techies on their machines. I showed them how to use it, shoewed them how it differend from windows, and what's the first thing I hear from them when it starts up? "Oh, I don't know if I can do this... look at all those lines scrolling by...."
Microsoft learned a long time ago that 99% of their users don't understand or care about those lines scrolling by, and in fact it intimidates them. It is generally not considered a good idea to intimidate your users. It just makes them not want to use your system.
Sure, in the perfect world nobody would be intimidated, and everybody would understand implicity that they really don't need to pay attention to most of those messages in most cases. But the world's no perfect, and neither are the people in it.
If you hook up a terminal to the serial port while BeOS is booting, you'll get all sorts of messages on the terminal as the system boots up. It comes in handy for diagnosing if there is a (very rare) problem.
I believe if you press the space bar just before bootup, you can get into the boot menu and have it throw up some initialization messages on your actual screen, too.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
If you want to know why more users is a very good thing, recall how four or five years ago it was very tough to put together a decent Linux system at all. There was no incentive for manufacturers to release info for driver writers, and there was no incentive to release Linux versions of software packages. The situation is greatly (though not completely) changed today, largely because of what limited popularity Linux has achieved.
Here's an idea.. rather than display a cute image for no apparent reason, how about actually starting the gui up and letting me do something whilst the system loads? For example, the first few seconds of my linux boot up start up the drivers etc and eventually start init. Now if my init was my desktop application (eazel, kde, whatever) then I could have the screen and the mouse all in the right mode and ready to go at the instant that it actually starts. Then the first thing my desktop app can do is start all those daemons and run all those network startup scripts and give me a nice gui display that I can ignore if I want and go off and start working.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Hmmm, Linux gets a splash screen on boot. And only a few years after FreeBSD.
Do you mean that the graphical loading screen is unnessesary "bells and whistles", made to "attract the best partners"? If so - huh?!
I mean, what's more impressive, masses of cryptic messages or a cute animation of a penguin? The answer is simple - cryptic messages make you look, no, feel more computer-educated, it shows that you're a True Linux Guru and not just a pathetic "user", and in one word -- l33t.
Don't believe any of those people who say that they hate the graphical loading screens because they take memory/boot speed or that they hide important messages (ever heard of mesg?). It's purely psychological. It's related only to these people's feeling of self-esteem.
Of course, that might be exactly what you meant, and if so - I am truly sorry.
But, even if that's what you meant, the last sentence is still very, uhm, immature, not to say pathetic. "Are these people the kind of people we want to attract"?!. I'm sorry, we want to attract just certain types of people now? And what quality do those "people" lack that we should shun them so? Intellect? Cool-ness?
Yeah, thanks God Linux isn't like Windows - filled with all those stupid users who can't even tell a pointer from an unsigned char.
Want some cheese to go with that?
Seriously, this is pretty cool if we *ever* expect Linux to gain a substantial foothold on the 'desktop.' The majority of users don't care how many bogomips or the details of how their scsi card is initialized, they just want to get going. All that junk *may* actually intimidate the average/novice user into thinking they're getting into something over their head.
Oh, and don't forget, in Win 9x/Me, you CAN hit -Esc- to show you all the juicy startup info....
Blech. Signatures.
hrmm, topic aside ... i tried to install Linux on win2k Professional to have a multi-boot system but i failed. Probably Win2k wont allow me to install Lilo either on MBR or Linux root partition ... can anyone help?
PHP - People Hate Perl
Newbies like it, and if it is possible to turn it off, then why not?
The energy star link should be http://bios.new.com.ua:8100/energy.html .. also, on the linuxnews.pl page, the url got a extra " that screws things up .. http://lpp.freelords.org is the right url for the Linux Progress Patch ;). Anyhow, this is good, but - haven't tested it, can you press escape or something to see the _real_ boot msgs? :P
-Stskeeps, http://unrealircd.com
I tried the Linux Progress Patch sometime last week and found it to be interesting. Sure, it was neat seeing this fancy debian boot screen, but it was not all that easy. A patching of the kernel and entire kernel recompile is neccessary in order to get it working.
If I were to suggest anything, it would be to allow the user the hit escape to view the boot information. Sure you can hit F2 to see it there, but I would like it much more to just hit escape.
Another key point is that if you move the mouse while it's booting, it leaves big black streaks across the screen (but then again, why would you move your mouse).
Overall it's an okay program with lots of work to go. When it can be integrated into a users system in a matter of seconds is when people will start checking it out more.
(Also, you need to put a ml at the end of the Energy Star link in this story).
--
Scott Miga
suprax@linux.com
I feel the same way, but this has a place©
In a perfect world, a splash screen would be on the primary console and bootup on the second© Ninety percent of the time, I don't even look at the bootup messages and that's because I rarely have a problem© However, if I've made some changes, to the machine and suspect that it might act up, I could alt-F2 to the bootup console and see if I can spot the problem© Its the best of both worlds and another win for Linux©
One of Linux's greatest strengths is that it can be whatever you want it to be from a firewall to a web server to a desktop© Anything that makes it better in a given area without sacrificing another is always a good thing©
"The words of the prophets are written on the Slashdot walls."
I wouln't dream of masking linux boot-up messages when I'm installing and configuring, but once it's up and running, would be nice to tart up the start-up.
With Windows 9x, no real point viewing an internal gubbins as doubt you could fix serious problems anyway without certification in registry hacking, or my usual method, being really quick at reinstalling.
Of course, there's www.xosl.org for a nice pretty boot manager, because - let's face it - lilo ain't attractive!
when you start a car you hear all sorts of grinding and clicking sounds as the starter engages, yet you don't think "i can't do this". If it's something you don't understand, ignore it. Surely it will be usefull for someone else.
** Martin
I propose they should put in a hotkey so if the system doesn't boot, you can use the hotkey to cancel out the graphics and see the actual boot information.
========================
63,000 bugs in the code, 63,000 bugs,
ya get 1 whacked with a service pack,
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
A picture at boot time getting people excited? Well that's just great.
Linux could be really good if it stopped duplicating "cute" features from elsewhere and started doing something really innovative.
So we've got all this DRI/OpenGL stuff in Linux. Why not use it to build a 3D flyby sequence on startup, an impression of cyberspace at your command. Demo coders have been doing that stuff for years, surely it can't be that hard to knock together?
That, as much as anything else, would cause the windoze mob to actually stop and think "cool... gotta get some of this linux thing. It's got, like, the best startup sequence of any OS anywhere."
Of course, if you don't want to see linux on the desktop and think it should be reserved for elite hackers and sysadmins who actually care what a compiler does, then you can safely ignore this.
Openflash
This runs in QNX from the console, but there's no reason it couldn't be adapted to other motherboards and BIOS setups.
The nice thing is that it's a BIOS hack, so even if you yank out a hard drive to boot Windoze to play some games, you still have your funky boot logo.
Yeah, I also like watching my PC autodetect the hard drives, and I also like seeing all the boot log stuff scrolling by on a *nix boot. But as others have correctly pointed out, this just scares most sheeple, who want to look at something pretty so they don't have to wonder what's going on under the hood. Whether we like their preference or not, it's real, and our obligation should be to the user, not to our notions of what a *nix boot "should" look like.
Sounds like you have a lot of services turned on (like a webserver, sendmail, etc.). Change the init scripts so that they don't startup and you can reduce the boot time. Remember that Windows boot time includes the time that it takes to get to the desktop and that hour glass icon to go away. I think Microsoft has done a good job of making people think it is fast, when it really isn't. After all, look at the Mac. Apple knew that they could make a Mac seem faster if they would make the desktop menus respond as fast as possible. What Linux really needs is not fancy boot up screens and stuff, but good level minded ergonomics engineers.
I noticed some (or maybe all) FIC motherboards include a utility on a CD with drivers, to help OEM's change the BIOS boot logo. I'm sure other motherboard manufacturers do this too. Also Sun SPARCs let you change the oemlogo shown at boot, which is stored in the nvram. I think there are even some Linux and SunOS utilities to help you if you don't feel like modifying it in the boot monitor.
that's leet! But I say sooner! Let's get the gui up and running before the filesystems are even mounted. Before the harddrive drivers are even initialized! Put the gui in the kernel. Start it on bootup then push it back out to usermode. Get rid of kernel compression and make sure the kernel is taking up contiguous sectors on the harddrive. Get the bios to load track by track the entire thing straight into memory. Ok.. maybe this wouldn't be the fastest, maybe we need to start the framebuffer driver, then the harddrive driver, then load the gui from some precompiled locations on the disk and get it rollin' in userland before we start initializing all the other drivers.
How we know is more important than what we know.
... I still like to be able to see my nameserver flip out and go "kernel panic!" after line 12!
Linux is about choice. You should be able to have a graphical login, AND see the last line of the boot messages at the same time. Or else you hit return and you get the boot messages. I don't know if the boot prompt actually does this, but it should.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I'll take RiscOS as an example
In this case we have:
It is really quick and hence, not disturbing.
In case there is an hardware error here, just remember the last color you saw and check with the manual if it was due to the mainboard, the ram, the sound/video chip (VIDC) or the cpu.
So my question is : Do we need machines that are nice to contemplate while one's waiting for them to finish booting or do we need machines with a quick, informative and efficient boot sequence ?
--
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Personally, I want a meld of both.
The neatest thing about Windows 2000, in my brief experience with it, is that if it's doing something on bootup out of the ordinary (like converting a partition), it will create a pseudo-console, wrapped by the Win2000 logo and a scrolling line thingy, that manages to contain the scrolling text and look pretty.
That's what I would want, but all the time. The important information stays, without sacrificing the "ooo..." factor. I like my boot info, but I like my Penguin too.
Is this post not nifty? Sluggy Freelance. Worshi
If not that, use flash and a limited runtime boot program, such as the one I mentioned earlier. Who wouldn't want to see boot messages drift away like StarWars credits. (OK...once in a while. After all, how many times do you need to reboot your machine each year?)
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Rather than a boot logo, I'd like the information that currently scrolls by to be presented a little more usefully.
The stuff that scrolls by 1)goes by too fast 2)is filled with noise that obscures useful information.
How about a table (kind of like the bios info table) that gets filled in as the boot process continues. Possible entries:
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
Perhaps I'm the only one that actually went to the site, but it appears that bootup messages are piped to the splash screen. I'd double-check the code before I installed it, though.
Personally, I'll definitely be giving this a try...anything to make my box more custom, sleek, and sexy is cred by me. I've single-handedly drawn most of my friends to Linux by extolling it's many virtues, and this is just another "Wow, cool!" factor.
Bottom line: It's Open Source Software. The beauty of that is, you have a choice. Install it or don't, but don't shit all over the people who think this is a cool thing.
--Just Another Pimp A$$ Perl Hacker (who gets paid to 'fiddle with logging and other bullshit')
El riesgo vive siempre!
Blue text on a black background is kewl and rad, but unreadable.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I think is really cool to see when linux is booting. Is cool to see just how works in the inside. Just think of it like a transparent device. YOu know like those cool transparent phones when you see all the wiring. Well if you think a picture is worth a thousand words put one.
I just got something like that working this morning. The answer: start XDM first thing after mounting the partitions. My boot scripts are custom made (by me), so it's easy for me to do, but it shouldn't be too hard even on distro scripts.
So, my computer checks the filesystems, mounts them, starts xdm, and then continues on to set up networking, services, etc. I'm working as soon as it starts xdm.
My X setup takes mouse data from gpm. This could cause some problems with kdm (which can use the mouse), but the mouse is not needed or used in xdm. I have gpm starting afterwards, and gpm is loaded by the time I finish logging in.
Hope this helps,
-Chris
There is also those other strange people who want to put every bell, light and whistle on their rig, even if it is just to scare people, and intimidate the neighbors. Sort of like the Hell's Angels (with paint jobs, etc) or other motor cycle enthuthiasts with lights, radios, and enough gear to outfit a mobile home.
As a side note, this might be related to this story over the holidays describing how men in bars flaunt their mobile phones to attract women (and it works). The geek with the most impressive rack of equipment could attract the best partners. Or so the logic would go.
The only point here is that mental/emotional factors have to be considered as well.
So an opening animated graphic (or even a shockwave/flash file) would be attract to some people, beginners and otherwise. I imagine you could even have a whole operating system where many cues are not done by sound files(as in windows) but are by embedded flash files, etc. The computer could seem to be alive to the beginner, if this were done cleverly.
This would certainly attract alot of people.
Are these people the kind of people we want to attract?
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Look at the title of this article, "Making Linux Booting Pretty". Did the editors skip elementary school?
Subject line tells it all.
Sigged!
Thanks bud, but I'll take the kharma hit.
Humor is a tough thing to pull off, apparently I was anti-microsoft enough.
Would someone with some authority at Slashdot be so kind as to consider mirroring downloads locally? I really wanted those bios-editing files from the Windows site, and it's slashdotted all to hell and back.
If you're going to post the news article, at least be kind to the people who might want the software.
Remove the spamfreak to speak.
Ironic.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
The NeXT boot sequence was quite pretty, graphical, and told you what was happening with minimal detail.
However sometimes you needed the real info, in which case there was an alternative boot time switch that let you do just that (I can't remember the exact process, but it would be equiv to adding a parameter to a lilo command line).
Actually, if your car informed you through a sequence of beeps, honks and whistles about everything that was going on inside, you *would* mind.
Also, notice that the tendency is for cars to become *quieter* in everything, so as to not disturb passengers/people around it, so you're sunk there too.
...
Yes, I know I ramble and my spelling isn't quite up to scratch. If you wish to complain,
You beome what you critize is what I was told all the time as a kid and it looks like that is what is going on with Linux. You bitch about Windows while you make Linux look like it.
If the sceen would speed up boot then I'd say its a nice option (note option) to have. In Windows leaving the boot sceen up does speed booting some because it doesn't use cycles up outputing all the status messages.
So if you're going to do it, please make this an option I can turn off.
RedHat 7.0 users will probably find this useful : I've built a patched version of the "initscripts" package that includes tests to display the services startup messages with the Linux Progress Patch (of course, you can still use a non-patched kernel without any problems).
My scripts are available in the official packages, but you can grab an updated RPM (easier and cleaner to install) from my website in the "initscripts-lpp" directory
http://redhat.aldil.org/
A link to this RPM should soon be on the new official website (lpp.freelords.org) anyway.
Matthias
-- Life wasn't meant to be easy...
It's not just unnecessary, it's *evil*.
:)
For crying out loud. First they took away my toggle switches, and then the whole front panel.
Then the machines started taking it upon themselves to boot a DOS or TOS without even a "by your leave," let alone a keyboard command from the monitor.
Then they took the monitor.
NOw you want to take my boot sequence from me?
evil, evil, evil.
The *only* change that should happen in the current *nix boot sequences is to ad Majel Barrret's voice announcing key checkpoints , such as "going multiuser" and daemon initialization . . .
hawk, crankier than usual
I like Aurora - http://aurora.mini.dhs.org/ which has a pretty nice graphical bootup. It replaces the scrolling text with graphics and icons. It still shows enough information so you can see what's starting/failing.
Fantasy? Not any more
fast working on that new xdm login screen
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.