New Boot-Loader

Damien Fleuriot ml at my.gd
Mon Mar 28 17:42:45 UTC 2011



On 3/28/11 6:48 AM, Devin Teske wrote:
> Hi fellow hackers,
> 
> I'm designing an open-sourced replacement boot-loader for FreeBSD. I feel that the existing options in the boot-loader menu today can be whittled down significantly with a stateful menu system rather than a single-action item menu system.
> 
> In designing the new menu, I'd like to get your opinions. From old:
> 
> 	FreeBSD 8.1-RELEASE: twitpic.com/4e485w
> 
> to new:
> 
> 	Replacement Boot-Loader: twitpic.com/4e46ol
> 
> NOTE: The final release will have a single-user mode option.
> 
> The new menu allows for more flexibility as selecting options 2 ("Boot Verbose") or 3 ("ACPI Support") independently toggles the status, updates the menu item, and redisplays the menu -- ever-waiting until the user ultimately presses ENTER, "1", or escapes to the prompt and types "boot". Thus, one could potentially launch single-user mode with verbosity on and ACPI disabled (if one so desired).
> 
> In addition, I really tried to capture the essence of the new logo (spent months off-and-on using different conversion programs with different inputs). In the end, I found text-image.com produced the best result. I used the official freebsd.org/logo.html Standard Logo (black and white), cropped (to 122x123) and converted to jpeg with white background. I used an "Image Width" of 45 in their "Convert into ASCII" program available here: text-image.com/convert/ascii.html
> 
> I would be distributing this as an installable package (perhaps in the ports tree if it gains popularity).


I like the new looks, thanks for your efforts :)

I also like Paul's idea of tying the actions (single, verbose) to
letters instead of numbers.


As for the comment about this "new" look not being modern enough, to be
honest I for one could care less.
I'm using servers, when I see this loader this usually means there's a
problem or I'm anticipating one.
So it looking fancy isn't really my top priority, I'd rather it be
functional and well thought-out.

Thanks again for your work Devin :)


--
dfl


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