updateing splash screen faq

[joeb]

Sorry just found another hidden function so corrected the faq I posted
before.

Change the FAQ to say;

FreeBSD has a feature to allow the display of a "splash screen" in place of
seeing the boot messages rolling by. This makes for a visually cleaner
experience getting to the Xorg Desktop Display Manager logon screen and/or
virtual console logon prompt.

The "splash screen" function only supports (*.bmp) or (*.pcx) files of any
resolution supported by VESA. An 320x200 "splash screen" image will be
displayed as a small block in the center of a solid white background screen.
An 640x400 or larger "splash screen" image fills the whole display screen.
The "splash screen" function will interrogate the "splash screen" file
pointed to by the (bitmap_name=) option and auto load VESA to support the
required resolution for you.

While the "splash screen" is being displayed during the booting process you
can hit any keyboard key to return to the boot message display.

The "splash screen" defaults to becoming your screen saver. After a time
period of non-use your screen will change to the "splash screen" and cycles
through steps of changing intensity of the image, from bright intensity to a
very dark intensity and over again. You can override this default "splash"
screen" (screen saver) behavior by adding the saver= option (screen saver)
statement in /etc/rc.conf. The saver= option has several built-in screen
savers to choose from. Such as saver="warp". This default  "splash screen"
screen saver and /etc/rc.conf,  saver= option screen saver only applies to
virtual consoles. It has no effect on Xorg desktop display managers.

At boot time you still see a few boot messages leading up to and including
the boot options menu and the timed wait count down prompt before the
"splash screen" is displayed.

To enable the "splash screen" function;
Place your "splash screen" (*.bmp) or (*.pcx) file in the /boot directory.
Edit /boot/loader.conf so it contains the following:

bitmap_load="YES"
bitmap_name="/boot/splash.bmp"  or
bitmap_name="/boot/splash.pcx"

You are not restricted to using "splash" as the file name. You can name it
anything you want as long as it's a .bmp or .pcx file type. Such as
splash_640x400.bmp


There are 2 another loader.conf options you may be interested in.

Loader_logo="beastie"
This will replace the default words "FREE BDS" which are displayed to the
right of the boot menu with the colored beastie logo like releases in the
past had.

beastie_disable="YES"
Will stop the boot options menu from being displayed.
You will still get the timed wait count down prompt.


Now all you need is a splash screen. For that you can surf on over to the
gallery at http://www.baldwin.cx/splash/.