clearing screen during boot process

[Polytropon]

On Mon, 14 Jan 2019 12:23:46 -0500, Steven Friedrich wrote:
> When my system boots, it isues several messages, then clears the screen before 
> presenting the beastie menu.
> 
> How can I prevent the screen clearing?

You probably can't.

The reason is that the initial messages ("pre-kernel") are
printed during text mode, while the kernel switches to
graphics mode (vt) soon. This clears the screen content
and replaces the system's text mode output by a graphical
output that "mimics" text mode.

However, you could try the following: In /boot/loader.conf,
set the following:

	kern.vty="sc"

Now you can read the initial messages in text mode (!)
by pressing the Scroll Lock key and using the cursor
and page keys to move the buffer up to its top where
you can read the kernel and "pre-kernel" messages.

Keep in mind "startx" (and X in general) won't work with
sc anymore, it now _requires_ the use of vt!

See "man 4 vt" for details.




-- 
Polytropon
Magdeburg, Germany
Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...