Beastie

[Jon Noack]

On 11/28/04 19:16, Stephen Montgomery-Smith wrote:
> It is with a little intrepidation that I ask this question, because I 
> sense that what I am about to ask might push some buttons, or perhaps 
> bring back some unpleasant memories of those who have asked what I am 
> going to ask in a less tactful manner.
> 
> I find that the beastie that appears at boot time with FreeBSD 5.3 
> mildly bothers me.  It is possible for me to edit boot/beastie.4th, but 
> this gets put back each time I do make installworld.
> 
> Would it be possible to add a variable "show_beastie" to be put in 
> /boot/loader.conf, which would default to "YES", but users could add in 
> show_beastie="NO" if they didn't want it, but only want the menu.
> 
> I am sure that this is a sensitive subject with you guys, because I know 
> that you have no intention of associating FreeBSD with satanism or 
> anything like that.  It is not my intention to apply any kind of label 
> of evil to you guys, indeed I find FreeBSD to be a very fine operating 
> system, and I use it all the time.  But the symbol which is commonly 
> associated with the devil does cause me some discomfort, and for 
> example, if I were to install some kind of server for my church, I think 
> that it would bother them as well.
> 
> I know that the the symbol of the beastie is strongly associated with 
> FreeBSD, and that it would be grossly unfair for me to ask for it to be 
> removed just because of my personal discomfort.
> 
> That is why I am proposing the solution above.  I think that it would be 
> easy to implement by anyone who knows Forth (presuming that the 
> loader.conf variables are known to the beastie.4th program), and that 
> this would not interfere at all with those who don't mind or enjoy the 
> beastie, but it would also help people like me in an unobtrusive manner.

Throw 'beastie_disable="YES"' into /boot/loader.conf.

Jon