kern/143370: splash_txt ASCII splash screen module

[Antony Mawer]

On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 1:10 PM, jhell <jhell at dataix.net> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 12:47:45PM +1000, Antony Mawer wrote:
>> On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 11:33 AM, jhell <jhell at dataix.net> wrote:
>> > Most admins that I know don't bother with things like splash screens on
>> > 'production' equipment because its irrelevant to the actual server
>> > usage and unneeded overhead since the actual boot messages prove much
>> > more useful than some random ascii or bmp/pcx.
>>
>> They're embedded-style server systems at remote client sites, about
>> 1200 of them. The splash module is just a visual "nicety" which is
>> displayed during startup - at least providing some feedback as to what
>> the system is doing. These are systems aimed at a non-tech audience,
>> so those "niceties" count.
>>
>> The alternative to that was either standard kernel messages during
>> boot, or a silent boot, both of which tend to confuse the crap out of
>> non-tech end users.
>
> Yeah I agree. I originally downloaded your patch, I think it was for a
> 6.X system back then ~2008-09ish possibly even 7.X and twiddled with it
> for a bit playing around with all the funkiness of TheDraw and getting
> that good ole feeling of BBS days. But that's usually about as far as I
> go with things like that as you  could probably tell from above ;)
>
> I was going through my archive file directory probably last month and
> came across the copy of the program which made me remember that patch,
> funny coincidence that it comes back up now ;)
>
> I must say though having to use a reproducible .bin file over trying to
> figure out all the complexities of making a proper gzip'd xpm,bmp,pcx
> file was NICE!
>
> My first attempt ever making a splash image bmp was a fail due to manual
> reading problems but needless to say it was a pain. TheDraw nearly
> painless but how long can we seriously hold on to that program and will
> there ever be anything to replace it ?

I had to update our splash screen recently for $WORK, and have
recently shifted my primary desktop+laptop to a Mac. Thought I'd give
DOSBox a go and sure enough TheDraw fired up beautifully! You are
right about it being a flash back to the BBS days.

I have used DuhDraw (open source clone of TheDraw) under Linux many
many years ago; there's a port in graphics/duhdraw if anyone wanted to
try it out and see if it still works. In theory it should work just as
well as TheDraw...

Have been keeping this building in our local tree for all these years,
but figured that there must be some people out there who might like to
use it too...

-- Antony