updateing splash screen faq

martinko gamato at users.sf.net
Thu Nov 20 21:22:39 UTC 2008


Gabor PALI wrote:
> Hi joeb,
> 
> I started to review your proposed changes, and I have some comments:
> 
> 
>> "This makes for a visually cleaner experience getting to the Xorg
>> Desktop Display Manager logon screen and/or virtual console logon
>> prompt."
> 
> Sorry, I do not understand this sentence.
> 
> 
>> 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.
>>
>> [..]
> 
> I do not think you should mention every detail.  In my opinion, it would
> be better to put all the text into the Handbook, then reference it from
> the FAQ (if you want to write all these things down step by step).  Or
> why do not simply reference the corresponding manual pages for example?
> 
> I think your changes make the answer too long, a FAQ entry should be
> more compact, a quick way to answer a problem, as it is the original
> version.  To be honest, I am reluctant a bit to include all of
> your text in the FAQ in the first round.
> 
> I would prefer a simple fix to remove the /boot/loader.rc part and
> include some manual page references.  Well, here is my recommendation:
> 
> 
> 11.18. How do I install a splash screen and where do I find them?
> 
> FreeBSD have a feature to allow the display of "splash" screens during
> the boot messages.  The splash screens currently must be a 256 color
> bitmap (*.BMP) or ZSoft PCX (*.PCX) file. In addition, they must have a
> resolution of 320x200 or less to work on standard VGA adapters.  If you
> compile VESA support into your kernel (see vga(4)), then you can use
> larger bitmaps up to 1024x768. The actual VESA support can either be
> compiled directly into the kernel with the VESA kernel config option or
> by loading the VESA kernel module during bootup.
> 
> To use a splash screen, you need to modify /boot/loader.conf to contain
> the following:
> 
> splash_bmp_load="YES"
> bitmap_load="YES"
> 
> This assumes you are using /boot/splash.bmp for your splash screen.  If
> you would rather use a PCX file, copy it to /boot/splash.pcx, modify
> /boot/loader.conf to contain:
> 
> splash_pcx_load="YES"
> bitmap_load="YES"
> bitmap_name="/boot/splash.pcx"
> 
> Now all you need is a splash screen.  For that you can surf on over to
> the gallery at http://www.baldwin.cx/splash/.  For further options,
> please see the splash(4), loader.conf(5) manual pages.
> 
> 
> Cheers,
> :g
> 

Hi,

IIRC even with VESA there's a limit of 1024x768 for boot splash images.

You may want to mention sysutils/bsd-splash-changer port with which you 
can have splash image chosen randomly from your collection.

M.




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