Bye-bye beastie ...

[Kevin Kinsey]

Mike Jeays wrote:

>
>As well as turning off the beastie, is there a way to suppress all the
>dmesg and other output, so that the first thing to appear is the KDM or
>GDM login screen?  When I show FreeBSD to people who have only seen
>Windows before, their first reaction is how geeky all that text looks as
>it rolls by.  They are turned off before I even get to the login
>screen.  Most current Linuxes are 'better' in this respect.
>
>I realise it may make it harder to debug failed startups...
>  
>

We use a "splash" screen --- I forget where it's documented
in the handbook/FAQ, but splash(4) has most of the 'GUI'
details (pun intended).

Basically, as root:
 $ echo splash_bmp_load="YES" >> /boot/loader.conf
 $ echo bitmap_name="/boot/splash.bmp" >> /boot/loader.conf

This should cause "splash_bmp.ko" to be kldloaded at boot
time.  The bitmap should be 320 x 200 x 8 colors (at least that's
what works for us - probably related to console settings).  We use it
as an opportunity to show the company logo.

It comes up after the "beastie menu" and the copyright info
(and a couple of error looking notices ... we're on 6.0-BETA5
in the office now, dunno if it's related ;-), basically, during
the kernel device probe.

It will stay on as long as a key isn't pressed.   xdm "takes
over" after the boot process (I assume gdm/kdm would, too)
and so this is less "geeky" stuff to look at, I guess.  It can
be a little confusing if you don't run an X based display
manager --- it'll stay on and cover up the login: prompt
on ttyv0, so a novice might well wonder "how long is this
going to take" while your box sits patiently waiting for
a login.

Note that this splash/bitmap also acts as a "screensaver" when
you're in console, AFAICT. 

HTH,

Kevin Kinsey