The Gentoo Framebuffer, Bootsplash & Grubsplash How-To

phreakophile · n00b Joined: 26 Mar 2004 Posts: 1

I just spent the last several hours trying to get this to work, carefully going through config files and tutorials and all that, all to no avail.

Why?

Because one VERY IMPORTANT piece of information is left out of the tutorial (as of the time of this writing):

***---> BootSplash ONLY supports 16-bit <---***

I was trying to do it in 24-bit... silly me. Anyway... I'm sure there are other ignorant souls out there such as I, so it would be really good if you could include this tidbit in the tutorial above.

See this issue on their website's faq (http://www.bootsplash.org/faq.html)

Thanks.

arejay · n00b Joined: 27 Mar 2004 Posts: 1

I spent a LONG time trying to get bootsplash to work because it silently fails if the color depth is not 16. I had to go through the code and comment it up with printk's to figure this out.

Anyways, the standard diagram:

| 640x480 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024
----+-------------------------------------
256 | 0x301 0x303 0x305 0x307
32k | 0x310 0x313 0x316 0x319
64k | 0x311 0x314 0x317 0x31A
16M | 0x312 0x315 0x318 0x31B

Is very confusing, since only elements in the third row will work. This should be made more clear in the howto! Perhaps something like

Your framebuffer must support 16 bit color depth. You can chose the resolution of the bootsplash using the following values for vga:

640x480 800x600 1024x768 1280x1024
-------------------------------------
0x311 0x314 0x317 0x31A

Great job other wise though!

For those of you struggling with a silent failure, make sure your vga=0x317 or vga=0x31A etc.

robfish · Posted: Mon Mar 29, 2004 8:31 am Post subject:

I tried this howto a few weeks ago with no success. (Kernel 2.6.3)

Tonight, obviously after some recent edits, it worked great. Thanks.
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benwick · n00b Joined: 31 Mar 2004 Posts: 1

There's lots of questions out there on making bootsplash work with i810fb, and need I mention, not a lot of answers. (Maybe it works with Gentoo, but I doubt it; I use Slackware. Posting here because this is easily the best repository for this info that exists.)

Ok, so I got it to work, and it's actually not too hard. I'm using a vanilla Kernel 2.6.3 plus the bootsplash patch. Lots of errors of various sorts originally, including the infamous "framebuffer can't handle it" which, you'll all be happy to know, is mendacity of the highest order.

The solution I came up with is nothing revolutionary, although it may in fact be stupid. I simply recompiled the kernel without the VESA fb driver altogether, and since this broke the bootsplash section of the kernel compile, I cut out the parts of the bootsplash.c code (/usr/src/linux/drivers/video/bootsplash/bootsplash.c) that causes the error. To wit:

J0bro

Narada · Guru Joined: 12 Dec 2002 Posts: 300 Location: London, UK

hardcampa · n00b Joined: 11 Oct 2002 Posts: 58

Just thought I let you know, if you don't use love sources or a prepatched kernel, but instead just look for the bootsplash patch to go with kernel 2.6.5.
I host it with some info in this forum:
Bootsplach Patch For 2.6.5
Note I shouldn't take credit or anything for this patch, wasn't me that made it. I just host it =)

If you want that splashpicture you can find it here
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chris.pickett · n00b Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 72 Location: Montreal

Hi! I have some good news!

I have a Thinkpad A20p with the uncommon-but-surprisingly-common-for-laptops native resolution of 1400x1050. The guide managed to get me a framebuffer with 1280x1024, but I wasn't willing to settle for less ...

Anyway: for all you people getting blank screens or who are frustrated because the kernel docs don't list the resolution you want ... there is a dos utility called lfb.exe that I found on a linux Thinkpad T21 page.

However, I'm going to post the instructions in the next post because I can't cut and paste between nano and links, and so have to switch to a different machine ... console workaround suggestions are welcome.

Cheers,
Chris

chris.pickett · n00b Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 72 Location: Montreal

NOTE: you might need to visit http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm if the 622c.zip link below does not work.

Also, see this other topic I originally posted about this, where there's additional discussion about 1) dosemu, 2) other utilities (vbetest), 3) weird resolutions like 1680x1050. You may not even need to make a bootdisk.

https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=160013

If you have additional problems with this lfb.exe stuff, it's probably more likely that I'll see them if you post there or PM me, than just reply here.

----------- instructions for the original bootdisk method follow -------------

# cd ~
# wget http://this.is.not-mediaways.net/but.i.am/flo/t21/lfb.exe
# wget http://1gighost.net/dosfile/622c.zip
# unzip 622c.zip
# emerge -a mtools
-- insert HD 1.44 Mb floppy
# fdformat /dev/fd0h1440
# mformat -v DOS622 -f 1440 a:
# dd if=622C.IMG of=/dev/fd0h1440
# mcopy lfb.exe a:lfb.exe
# mdir a:
# reboot
a:\> lfb > fbmodes.txt
-- eject floppy
-- <ctrl>-<alt>-<delete>
-- boot linux
-- insert floppy
# mcopy a:fbmodes.txt fbmodes.txt
less fbmodes.txt
-- choose the hex for the mode you want, add 0x200, set vga=<your_new_mode> in /boot/grub/grub.conf

i get the following output with a rage128 (be warned: it *differs* between rage128's), and so I choose vga=0x342 to get 1400x1050x16bpp

Version : 2.00
OEM Name : ATI MOBILE M3
memory : 16777216
PM calls : at c000:647a, len 0166
win : 0026
start: 006e
pal : 00a8
26 00 6e 00 a8 00 0c 00 00 20 00 01 10 20 16 20
54 20 38 20 3c 20 5c 20 00 20 04 20 b0 20 b2 20
b4 20 ff ff ff ff 56 52 e8 f9 00 00 00 66 87 d6
0a ff 75 1e b2 10 ec a8 08 74 07 5a 5e 66 b8 4f
03 c3 66 8b c6 b2 38 0a db 74 0e b2 3c 80 fb 01
74 07 5a 5e 66 b8 4f 01 c3 66 d1 e0 66 8b f0 fe
c0 66 50 66 56 58 ef 5a 5e 66 b8 4f 00 c3 56 e8
b2 00 00 00 f6 c3 7f 74 06 5e 66 b8 4f 01 c3 50
51 52 66 52 66 51 59 c1 e1 02 66 8b d6 e8 82 00
00 00 b2 00 b8 24 02 00 00 ef b2 04 8b c1 ef 5a
59 58 5e 66 b8 4f 00 c3 f6 c3 7f 74 0a 80 fb 01
74 05 66 b8 4f 02 c3 66 81 f9 00 01 77 0c 66 8b
c2 66 03 c1 66 3d 00 01 76 05 66 b8 4f 01 c3 56
53 51 52 57 e8 4d 00 00 00 8a c2 66 8b d6 80 fb
01 74 17 b2 b0 ee e8 29 00 00 00 b2 b4 26 8b 07
ef 83 c7 04 66 49 75 f5 eb 10 b2 b2 ee b2 b4 ed
26 89 07 83 c7 04 66 49 75 f5 5f 5a 59 5b 5e 66
b8 4f 00 c3 80 fb 80 75 0c b2 5c ec a8 01 75 fb
ec a8 01 74 fb c3 50 51 52 57 e8 00 00 00 00 5f
66 2e 8b 97 d9 fe ff ff 66 2e 8b 8f db fe ff ff
66 8b f2 b2 16 66 ed 66 3b c1 74 10 b6 ff 66 ed
66 3b c1 74 07 fe ce 75 f5 66 8b d6 32 d2 66 8b
f2 5f 5a 59 58 c3
182h: 320 x 200 x 8 0xf8000000, 255 pages
10dh: 320 x 200 x 15 0:5:5:5 0xf8000000, 127 pages
10eh: 320 x 200 x 16 0:5:6:5 0xf8000000, 127 pages
10fh: 320 x 200 x 24 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 84 pages
120h: 320 x 200 x 32 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 63 pages
192h: 320 x 240 x 8 0xf8000000, 127 pages
193h: 320 x 240 x 15 0:5:5:5 0xf8000000, 84 pages
194h: 320 x 240 x 16 0:5:6:5 0xf8000000, 84 pages
195h: 320 x 240 x 24 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 63 pages
196h: 320 x 240 x 32 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 50 pages
1a2h: 400 x 300 x 8 0xf8000000, 127 pages
1a3h: 400 x 300 x 15 0:5:5:5 0xf8000000, 63 pages
1a4h: 400 x 300 x 16 0:5:6:5 0xf8000000, 63 pages
1a5h: 400 x 300 x 24 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 41 pages
1a6h: 400 x 300 x 32 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 31 pages
1b2h: 512 x 384 x 8 0xf8000000, 84 pages
1b3h: 512 x 384 x 15 0:5:5:5 0xf8000000, 41 pages
1b4h: 512 x 384 x 16 0:5:6:5 0xf8000000, 41 pages
1b5h: 512 x 384 x 24 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 27 pages
1b6h: 512 x 384 x 32 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 20 pages
1c2h: 640 x 350 x 8 0xf8000000, 63 pages
1c3h: 640 x 350 x 15 0:5:5:5 0xf8000000, 35 pages
1c4h: 640 x 350 x 16 0:5:6:5 0xf8000000, 35 pages
1c5h: 640 x 350 x 24 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 22 pages
1c6h: 640 x 350 x 32 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 17 pages
100h: 640 x 400 x 8 0xf8000000, 63 pages
183h: 640 x 400 x 15 0:5:5:5 0xf8000000, 31 pages
184h: 640 x 400 x 16 0:5:6:5 0xf8000000, 31 pages
185h: 640 x 400 x 24 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 20 pages
186h: 640 x 400 x 32 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 15 pages
101h: 640 x 480 x 8 0xf8000000, 50 pages
110h: 640 x 480 x 15 0:5:5:5 0xf8000000, 24 pages
111h: 640 x 480 x 16 0:5:6:5 0xf8000000, 24 pages
112h: 640 x 480 x 24 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 16 pages
121h: 640 x 480 x 32 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 12 pages
103h: 800 x 600 x 8 0xf8000000, 31 pages
113h: 800 x 600 x 15 0:5:5:5 0xf8000000, 16 pages
114h: 800 x 600 x 16 0:5:6:5 0xf8000000, 16 pages
115h: 800 x 600 x 24 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 10 pages
122h: 800 x 600 x 32 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 7 pages
105h: 1024 x 768 x 8 0xf8000000, 20 pages
116h: 1024 x 768 x 15 0:5:5:5 0xf8000000, 9 pages
117h: 1024 x 768 x 16 0:5:6:5 0xf8000000, 9 pages
118h: 1024 x 768 x 24 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 6 pages
123h: 1024 x 768 x 32 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 4 pages
107h: 1280 x 1024 x 8 0xf8000000, 11 pages
119h: 1280 x 1024 x 15 0:5:5:5 0xf8000000, 5 pages
11ah: 1280 x 1024 x 16 0:5:6:5 0xf8000000, 5 pages
11bh: 1280 x 1024 x 24 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 3 pages
124h: 1280 x 1024 x 32 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 2 pages
172h: 1600 x 1200 x 8 0xf8000000, 7 pages
173h: 1600 x 1200 x 15 0:5:5:5 0xf8000000, 3 pages
174h: 1600 x 1200 x 16 0:5:6:5 0xf8000000, 3 pages
175h: 1600 x 1200 x 24 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 1 pages
176h: 1600 x 1200 x 32 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 1 pages
140h: 1400 x 1050 x 8 0xf8000000, 10 pages
141h: 1400 x 1050 x 15 0:5:5:5 0xf8000000, 4 pages
142h: 1400 x 1050 x 16 0:5:6:5 0xf8000000, 4 pages
143h: 1400 x 1050 x 24 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 2 pages
144h: 1400 x 1050 x 32 0:8:8:8 0xf8000000, 1 pages

hope this helps everyone. if the lfb.exe or 622c.zip files go down, let me know, i'll keep copies.

Narada · Guru Joined: 12 Dec 2002 Posts: 300 Location: London, UK

kbatman · Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2004 12:37 am Post subject:

thanks for the effort put into this doc ... more toys to play with now ... but again thanks
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comments > /dev/null

tmlonline · n00b Joined: 16 Apr 2004 Posts: 1

Hi,

Does this work for the wide screen resolution (1280x800)?

Thanks

Insanity5902 · Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2004 7:44 pm Post subject:

As far as i know , no. Maybe if you tried do some of the fb hacks to get a higher refresh rate, you might be able, but from my research fb only does the standard 4:3 ratios, not the 16:9 or 16:10. Trust me, I wish it could. My monitor runs at 1280x768 natively, and I have searched and found nothing.
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chris.pickett · n00b Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 72 Location: Montreal

Try the lfb.exe method I posted just above and see if your video card supports that mode. It only takes 5 or 10 minutes ...

rfujimoto · Apprentice Joined: 22 Mar 2004 Posts: 195

Thanks for the great guide!

Just as a note, I run a pure UDEV system and some kernel sources do not properly report to udev that /dev/fb should be created.

There are patches in the mm-sources and love-sources. I can't find the actual patch and I'm not sure of the name for the patch. I just know those two sources have the needed patch for a pure UDEV system.

Godvalve · n00b Joined: 27 Jun 2003 Posts: 34 Location: Canada

Hellsnoopy · n00b Joined: 19 Apr 2004 Posts: 5

What about an ebuild for 2.4.26 ?

northfuse · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 13 Nov 2003 Posts: 96

i've tried many times to try to get the silent boot screen working, but to no avail. I first used gentoo-dev-sources-2.6.5 (the ones i've been using for awhile), and also downloaded and tried mm-sources-2.6.6-rc1, which also wouldn't change anything. I thought that I followed the tutorial, but maybe there is something that i missed?

Narada · Guru Joined: 12 Dec 2002 Posts: 300 Location: London, UK

muchar · Posted: Tue Apr 20, 2004 8:47 pm Post subject:

I did everything as mentioned here, and I cant get the effect - it Oopses.

I'm using gentoo-2.6.5 sources. Version 0.6-r14 of bootsplash. Don't know what I've broken. Here is what dmesg gives:

bootsplash 3.1.4-2004/02/19: looking for picture.... found (1024x768, 20089 bytes, v3).
bootsplash: status on console 0 changed to on
Unable to handle kernel paging request at virtual address e1aaa032
printing eip:
c0258228
*pde = 1fd6d067
*pte = 00000000
Oops: 0000 [#1]
PREEMPT
CPU: 0
EIP: 0060:[<c0258228>] Not tainted
EFLAGS: 00010202 (2.6.5-gentoo-r1)
EIP is at splash_renderc+0xe8/0x1b0
eax: 00000001 ebx: e0986032 ecx: 00000000 edx: e1aaa032
esi: 00000000 edi: 00000000 ebp: 0000ad55 esp: df733db4
ds: 007b es: 007b ss: 0068
Process splash.bin (pid: 4276, threadinfo=df732000 task=dfb63780)
Stack: 00000800 00000800 00000010 00000000 ad550000 00000000 00000000 00000001
c0413c20 c0413c20 c039c2f0 00000008 c0413ea4 c02588a0 00000000 c0413ea5
0000030c 00000019 00000010 00000008 00000010 00000010 00000008 e184e000
Call Trace:
[<c02588a0>] splash_cursor+0x130/0x210
[<c025197b>] fbcon_cursor+0x37b/0x3c0
[<c011475a>] recalc_task_prio+0x8a/0x1b0
[<c011475a>] recalc_task_prio+0x8a/0x1b0
[<c011560c>] schedule+0x33c/0x590
[<c020b99e>] complement_pos+0x1e/0x170
[<c0121f9e>] __group_send_sig_info+0x3e/0xc0
[<c020be9d>] hide_cursor+0x1d/0x30
[<c020c189>] redraw_screen+0x199/0x1e0
[<c011588a>] preempt_schedule+0x2a/0x50
[<c020c823>] vc_resize+0x393/0x490
[<c0255d7e>] splash_status+0xee/0x150
[<c025601d>] splash_write_proc+0x15d/0x400
[<c0175fcb>] proc_file_write+0x2b/0x40
[<c014a4bd>] vfs_write+0xcd/0x120
[<c014a5a8>] sys_write+0x38/0x60
[<c01086a7>] syscaCode: 0f b7 0a 90 8d 74 26 00 83 c2 02 f7 c7 40 00 00 00 74 60 0b
<6>bootsplash 3.1.4-2004/02/19: looking for picture.... found (1024x768, 20089 bytes, v3).
bootsplash: status on console 1 changed to on
bootsplash 3.1.4-2004/02/19: looking for picture.... found (1024x768, 20089 bytes, v3).
bootsplash: status on console 2 changed to on
bootsplash 3.1.4-2004/02/19: looking for picture.... found (1024x768, 20089 bytes, v3).
bootsplash: status on console 3 changed to on
bootsplash 3.1.4-2004/02/19: looking for picture.... found (1024x768, 20089 bytes, v3).
bootsplash: status on console 4 changed to on
bootsplash 3.1.4-2004/02/19: looking for picture.... found (1024x768, 20089 bytes, v3).
bootsplash: status on console 5 changed to on
ll_call+0x7/0xb

IAnybody knows what this could mean?
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ErnieS · n00b Joined: 14 Jan 2003 Posts: 49 Location: South FL

I have bootsplash working but have put up a custom image that doesn't look right with an overlay. The only way I can get rid of the blue transparent overlay is to comment out the line:
#box noover 20 20 1004 678 #04045498
This still leaves a border at the right and bottom edges. Is there any way to get rid of the border?
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hypnotic · Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2004 6:09 am Post subject:

ErnieS,

In the bootsplash config, "box" means draw a box using the specified color (including alpha transparency) and coordinates. Your box is actually five boxes in all likelihood. You've disabled the main box, but there are four other really long thin boxes creating the border. You need to comment out the remaining four "box" lines in your config. (One box for each side)

FYI, for anyone who wants to RTFM on the bootsplash config files, you can find somewhat adequate documentation here.

hypnotic · Posted: Wed Apr 28, 2004 6:15 am Post subject:

muchar,

I'm seeing the same thing. In my case, it's sporadic. I'm using two custom images. One always works fine. The other one works some of the time, but not all of the time.

For the image that breaks, the oops happens in two scenarios. The first is when I put the image in the initrd and reboot. The second is when I manually change a console's background using '/sbin/splash -s -u n -f image'

If anyone has anything else, please assist.

tEdEus · Posted: Fri Apr 30, 2004 8:13 am Post subject:

@Narada
Thank you for this howto - it's great.

All information on FB in one place. Good work.
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Assgier · Posted: Fri May 07, 2004 8:10 am Post subject:

very nice howto, i got it all running by patching vanilla kernel 2.6.6-RC3 (the current latest RC release in the 2.6 tree) with the 2.6.5 patch from your opening post

I also got mplayer (1.0_pre4-r1) running in the console just the way zenzei did it on his 2.5.x kernel

Of course i also should post my result and here it is

[edit]
one little problem still remains; at boot time, bootsplash starts up far too late... all the programs have allready started up and only 1 or 2 seconds before X starts up, bootsplash comes to play... i tried putting bootsplash in the "boot" runlevel instead of "default", but it didn't help much

Is there anyone who can tell me more about this? Thanks

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