How to hide the booting process?
- Pizzasgood
- Posts: 6183
- Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 20:28
- Location: Knoxville, TN, USA
http://www.bootsplash.org/
Just in case you didn't already know, and that's all I know. Just one URL.
I can see it now....A puppy that steadily grows a bigger afro until Puppy is fully loaded.....
Just in case you didn't already know, and that's all I know. Just one URL.
I can see it now....A puppy that steadily grows a bigger afro until Puppy is fully loaded.....
[size=75]Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. --Muad'Dib[/size]
[img]http://www.browserloadofcoolness.com/sig.png[/img]
[img]http://www.browserloadofcoolness.com/sig.png[/img]
Hell, I don't know, Blade. Is it kernel messages that show on the screen while Puppy boots, or the output of boot scripts, or a combination of the two?
As Pizza pointed out, if the computer hangs during the boot process the last message showing might help to figure out why. The boot screen text whizzes by so fast during a normal boot that I can't see any other reason why it should be there.
Rarsa, I'm NOT saying it bothers me, or that it should be removed. I definitely don't intend to add pretty pictures to the boot screen. I only want to make it serve some purpose, if I can figure one out.
My question is, would the ability to step through the boot program add enough troubleshooting utility to be worth the trouble of doing?
I'd be willing to tinker with it just for fun, but I don't have a clue where to start. Does the boot screen show where the program is located that controls the boot process and the messages that are displayed?
Pizza, the bootsplash website looks like it is mainly about eye candy. It doesn't look like it would be much help in modifying the boot program to single-step through it with the "Enter" key, but I admit that I don't know enough to say one way or the other.
As Pizza pointed out, if the computer hangs during the boot process the last message showing might help to figure out why. The boot screen text whizzes by so fast during a normal boot that I can't see any other reason why it should be there.
Rarsa, I'm NOT saying it bothers me, or that it should be removed. I definitely don't intend to add pretty pictures to the boot screen. I only want to make it serve some purpose, if I can figure one out.
My question is, would the ability to step through the boot program add enough troubleshooting utility to be worth the trouble of doing?
I'd be willing to tinker with it just for fun, but I don't have a clue where to start. Does the boot screen show where the program is located that controls the boot process and the messages that are displayed?
Pizza, the bootsplash website looks like it is mainly about eye candy. It doesn't look like it would be much help in modifying the boot program to single-step through it with the "Enter" key, but I admit that I don't know enough to say one way or the other.
I just got curious and compiled the rhgb.
Now the boot shows only about a screen and a half of very readable text. I'm trying to make it graphical.
Again, this was just curiosity. I don't see it being part of puppy as it requires an xorg X server. I used the new dotPup from MU.
Besides, right now I didn't optimize it for size or anything so it is using reams of HDD. and It requires to add a parameter to the grub kernel command, so people booting from livecd would not be able to use it.
Sorry for making you salivate... I know, I said that I would focus on more important things, but apparently a lot of people finds this important.
If you get to choose: Should I use my time trying to get apt-get and 1000 of slackware compiled applications to install in puppy or to have a nice boot screen, what would you prefer?
Now the boot shows only about a screen and a half of very readable text. I'm trying to make it graphical.
Again, this was just curiosity. I don't see it being part of puppy as it requires an xorg X server. I used the new dotPup from MU.
Besides, right now I didn't optimize it for size or anything so it is using reams of HDD. and It requires to add a parameter to the grub kernel command, so people booting from livecd would not be able to use it.
Sorry for making you salivate... I know, I said that I would focus on more important things, but apparently a lot of people finds this important.
If you get to choose: Should I use my time trying to get apt-get and 1000 of slackware compiled applications to install in puppy or to have a nice boot screen, what would you prefer?
Redhat Graphic Boot.flash wrote:What is the rhgb?
It shows a pretty screen while booting.
The more I see it I'm finding it's not worth it. Puppy loads so fast that the Graphic boot will just flash. Specially because it cannot run before usr_cram.fs is loaded as it needs libraries located there.
By the time usr_cram.fs is loaded, most everything has already been configured
So, to round-up this post and hopefully mark it "solved" I think that you can achieve most of what you want with the following:
- In a HDD installation that uses GRUB, just add the following to the kernel command.
(Only replace what is in bold, as your root will be in a different partition for sure)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz root=/dev/hda11 vga=791 quiet
- In a CD-ROM installation you will have to remaster the cd to start the kernel with those options.
That will show a nice Tux graphic at boot up and will 'quiet' all the kernel messaages. You will still see the init scripts messages.
I played with showing the init script messages conditionally and it worked, although to apply my method to all the messages I would require substantial time and thorough testing.
So, I hope that the 'poor man' solution is good enough for you.
[...]babbs wrote:...in case there is a problem and the progress/error is shown, but if it works, why keep showing it if you don't have to?
This is why I think we should have something like most of the other distributions do and that is a file like /etc/rc.d/functions, which includes things like displaying text on the console with a bold attribute or by using another colour. As I mentioned elsewhere om the forum, some of the sections in Puppy's sysinit already show the green 'done' text when something's worked Ok... but maybe you do/don't need/want to know about it... I remember a bit of discussion recently about what to do with the 'bad sector' os something -style error being displayed for a disk... and wouldn't you want to know as soon as possible if your disks were on the way out?Flash wrote:I agree. It would be nice if the boot screen had some practical use. For example, for troubleshooting purposes...
Looking at a distribution like PCLinuxOS, they have the 'functions' script so that when some segment is completed in sysinit a message like [ OK ] is displayed on the console. ...or, as some others have described, a 'booting' screen can be displayed right throught the boot until X is started (or all the sysinit messages can be displayed by pressing F2 at the booting screen, a la PCLinuxOS, Morphix, etc).
I think this would be part of the joy of playing with Linux is to borrow ideas from all the distributions... and with Open Source, that is basically encouraged... isn't it!?
- Pizzasgood
- Posts: 6183
- Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 20:28
- Location: Knoxville, TN, USA
Yep, both. Rarsa's method gets rid of the kernal, and mine should hopefully eliminate the init messages.Hell, I don't know, Blade. Is it kernel messages that show on the screen while Puppy boots, or the output of boot scripts, or a combination of the two?
But I see now that that's not what you're after. Yes, I do think stepping could be worth doing. I don't think it would slow it down much, the only way to know would be to try it.
If you wanted to set it up to just pause after every step, a simple way would be to go in and add
Code: Select all
read nnnnn
Code: Select all
if [ "$PAUSE" = "yes" ];then
read nnnnn
fi
Adding the ability to skip steps would be slightly trickier:
Code: Select all
if [ "$CHECK" = "yes" ];then
echo "I'm going to do something. Continue? y/n"
read CONTINUE
if [ "$CONTINUE" = "y" ];then
dostuffhere
read nnnnn
fi
else
dostuffhere
fi
Also, that won't do anything about the kernal messages, just the innit scripts.[/code]
[size=75]Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. --Muad'Dib[/size]
[img]http://www.browserloadofcoolness.com/sig.png[/img]
[img]http://www.browserloadofcoolness.com/sig.png[/img]
Pizzas, I also played with the script messages, my approach was different than yours in that at boot time it would ask if the boot should be verbose. The question would have a timeout so you can have an unattended boot.rarsa wrote:I played with showing the init script messages conditionally and it worked,
Code: Select all
echo "Do you want to see boot messages? (y/n)
read -t 5 VERBOSE
Code: Select all
conditionalecho()
{
if [ $VERBOSE = "y" ] ; then
echo $@
fi
}
You have to consider also that work needs to be repeated again for the following release.
So, there you have it. I don't feel like replacing all those echos, but someone may find this ideas interesting.
Thanks, Pizza, it looks like you understood exactly what I meant.
Why couldn't it be just another boot-screen option, like the way Windows shows "press F8 for advanced troubleshooting options" when it starts to boot?
Puppy's boot screen might look something like:
Why couldn't it be just another boot-screen option, like the way Windows shows "press F8 for advanced troubleshooting options" when it starts to boot?
Puppy's boot screen might look something like:
Or something like that.In 10 seconds Puppy Linux will load automatically with previously stored settings. (Press "Enter" to skip the wait);
Press 2 to load Puppy Linux without using the hard drive (Puppy will need to be configured);
Press 9 for Puppy Linux to stop after each step of the booting process and wait until you press "Enter" before proceeding to the next step.
- Pizzasgood
- Posts: 6183
- Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 20:28
- Location: Knoxville, TN, USA
Well, I don't know if you can do it there easily, but I do know that if you found the init script that launced first, you could have a separate choice then. Also, that way you could side-step having to have a step option for harddrive and for livecd. I'd only give it a five second or less timeout, but I'm not very patient. Maybe it could just say "Press F8 for alternative boot options," then it could give you a menu with any fancy processes you come up with, from no messages to stepping.
[size=75]Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. --Muad'Dib[/size]
[img]http://www.browserloadofcoolness.com/sig.png[/img]
[img]http://www.browserloadofcoolness.com/sig.png[/img]
It's not just a matter of tinkering around with the isolinux.cfg file?
- Pizzasgood
- Posts: 6183
- Joined: Wed 04 May 2005, 20:28
- Location: Knoxville, TN, USA
I don't know how the isolinux.cfg file is interpreted into the scripts. I haven't looked into it, but my conception has been that it either passes variables to loadlin or the kernal or something, not the actuall scripts. But like I said, I don't know
[size=75]Between depriving a man of one hour from his life and depriving him of his life there exists only a difference of degree. --Muad'Dib[/size]
[img]http://www.browserloadofcoolness.com/sig.png[/img]
[img]http://www.browserloadofcoolness.com/sig.png[/img]