Gensplash-How-to with progressbar!!!!!

[spock_]

In an attempt to battle the dark forces of chaos and misinformation I decided to commit the following little FAQ, I hope it will be helpful

1) Does gensplash/fbsplash require vesafb-tng?
Gensplash/fbsplash DOES NOT require vesafb-tng. It will work with any framebuffer driver, be it vesafb, rivafb, radeonfb, vesafb-tng, my-top-secret-driver-that-I-am-not-gonna-show-anyone-fb or whatever else, as long as the framebuffer driver provides 8/15/16/24/32bpp directcolor/pseudocolor modes. Since both vesafb and vesafb-tng do that, I will work with either of them.

2) Does vesafb-tng work with NV 5900 boards?
Vesafb-tng will work for NV 5900 users, it will not blow your monitor, burn your CPU or fill your hardisk with the contents of /dev/urandom. It will work just like vesafb did, but it still won't you set a higher refresh rate (it's only the refresh rate setting that won't work).

3) The gensplash-in-x-easy-steps guide had 10 steps, and now it has only 5. What happened to these 5 steps? Can I really set fbsplash up in only 5 steps?
All the points about patching the kernel and downloading the ebuilds have been removed, because fbsplash is now part of gentoo-dev-sources and the splashutils package is available in the official Portage tree. And yeah, you can pretty much set it up in 5 steps.

4) The new guide tells us to use an initrd. The old one didn't. What's going on? I thought you were supposed to use that initramfs thing with fbsplash?
Well, don't let yourself be deceived that easily. Your eyes tell you it's an initrd? They are wrong! Technically speaking it is still an initramfs image, it's just loaded like an initrd.

5) So now I can't compile my theme into the kernel?
You still can. There are two ways to do things now - the old one (compile into the kernel) and the new one (use the initrd-initramfs hybrid).

6) Two ways? Why two ways? Isn't one enough?
Some people have claimed that compiling themes into the kernel is insane And I think the new way is a bit easier..

7) But that initramfs thing.. it's loaded in the midway of the boot process! And I can still see those ugly black and white text messages telling me how many bogomips my system has etc..
The initramfs is used to populate the root filesystem before the framebuffer subsystem is initialized, so it's good enough - don't worry about it. As you might have noticed, your PC boots into the text mode, and not the graphics mode. The graphics mode is set up when the framebuffer subsystem is initialized. But before that can happen, other things must be initialized, things that take some time. That's why for a second or two you might be seeing the kernel messages. No you might say that with vesafb you did't have those. And you will be right. But vesafb is an exception, not a rule (it's initialized while the kernel is being loaded). Every other fb driver, including vesafb-tng, rivafb, radeonfb,.. is initialized with the fbdev subsystem.

8 ) My grub config looks like that:

Code: Select all

kernel /boot/gentoo-2.6.8.1 ro root=/dev/hda1
initrd /boot/fbsplash-emergence

and it doesn't work! It's broken!
It's not broken. First of all, you need a framebuffer. Add something like video=1024x768-32@85 to the kernel command line. Second, you need to tell fbsplash 1) to activate, 2) which theme to use. In order to do that, you should add smth like 'splash=silent,theme:emergence' to your kernel command line.

9) I have everything set up and I'm using /etc/bootsplash/gentoo/config/bootsplash-1024x768.cfg | /etc/splash/config/bootsplash-1024x768.cfg, etc
Hello? It's not bootsplash anymore, it's fbsplash! It's not gonna work with the old initrds, old configs, etc. Use proper themes, and it will work.

10) I've set everything up and first I'm in text mode, then the framebuffer is activated and then, after the "Gentoo Foundation" banner is displayed, the silent splash shows up. What's going on?
Your initramfs image is not working properly. Check it. Check if it's compiled into the kernel or if your bootloader is configured properly.

I think it about covers it all.. I was attempting to be humours in some parts (I know how boring all these FAQs can get). If I've failed and you feel offended by some parts, please accept my apologies

[raid517]

Thanks man I think the "bootsplash" refers to some things the original author of the thread printed. I'm not sure anyone was attempting to actually use it. (Although there did appear to be a number of other conflicting things said in the guide).

Oh well in any case you have confirmed for me one thing - and that is for this to work I need to gain regular access to the latest builds of the gentoo-development sources.

So in this regard I will make one last desperate stab at it before giving up and ask once more. Does anyone know where I can get access to the Gentoo development sources (and the themes mentioned above) or patch set - without using portage?

Because after this I am pretty much plumb out of ideas.

GJ

[Headrush]

raid517, there is no gentoo-dev-sources package.

You need the following:

linux-2.6.8.tar.bz2
genpatches-2.6.8-8.48-base.tar.bz2
genpatches-2.6.8-8.48-extras.tar.bz2

The first is the vanilla kernel sources that can be found at http://www.kernel.org

The second and third are the patches applied by gentoo to the vanilla kernels. You can find a gentoo mirror close to your location and look in the folder distfiles.

Here is one for example: http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dis ... distfiles/

Put all those in /usr/portage/distfiles and try emerge gentoo-dev-sources -p and see what you get.
If you have the latest sync of portage just remove the -p and away you go.

[maxheadroom]

splashutils-0.9_pre07 won't compile here on linux-2.6.8.1-love1. I get this error:

Code: Select all

make[1]: Leaving directory `/var/tmp/portage/splashutils-0.9_pre07/work/miscsplashutils-0.1.1/fbtruetype'
  CC      kernel/splash_kernel.o
In file included from splash_kernel.c:18:
/var/tmp/portage/splashutils-0.9_pre07/work/splashutils-0.9-pre07/linux/include/linux/fb.h:305: error: field `modelist' has incomplete type
make: *** [kernel/splash_kernel.o] Error 1

!!! ERROR: media-gfx/splashutils-0.9_pre07 failed.
!!! Function src_install, Line 57, Exitcode 2
!!! (no error message)

I just checked and I get the same problem with pre06. however, pre06 compiled fine here on 2.6.8.1-nitro1
Anybody got any pointers on where to look to fix this?[/code]

[snow16]

Just a comment...if you would like to enable gensplash to all consoles uncomment and edit this line in /etc/conf.d/splash

SPLASH_TTYS="0 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 10 11"

Then run

/etc/init.d/splash start

and

rc-update add splash default

[Suicidal]

2) Does vesafb-tng work with NV 5900 boards?
Vesafb-tng will work for NV 5900 users, it will not blow your monitor, burn your CPU or fill your hardisk with the contents of /dev/urandom. It will work just like vesafb did, but it still won't you set a higher refresh rate (it's only the refresh rate setting that won't work).

I'll testify to that works fine on my 5950 Ultra

[raid517]

OK I used genkernel. Shoot me, but it was my last shot. It did as it does best and built a horribly bloated kernel that doesn't respond well at all to tweaking anything. (or more specifically removing anything). Anyway this rather automates the process for you. However I have tow remaining questions left. One is since I have already specified in the kernel what the default resolution and depth should be etc, do I still need to specify this on the command line? The other is, how do I change the theme if I use Genkernel? I guess it should be simple, but what is the default directory Genkernel uses to build its themes?

GJ

[snow16]

The default directory to keep your themes is /etc/splash. When you add a new theme don't forget to:
rm /etc/splash/default
and
ln -s /etc/splash/"Your Theme" /etc/splash/default

[raid517]

Well genkernel says it still can't find any. Maybe I should give up after all.

Possibly kind of trivial anyway - though it would still be nice.

GJ

[Druker]

Hi all,
I'm using SuSE 9.0 pro on my Toshiba M30. SuSE uses bootsplash by default, but there's no use for it - my hardware is limited to 1280x800x8bit framebuffer (GF FX5200 64MB @ 1280x800 TFT). So I had to get rid of bootsplash completely and after I discovered gensplash I decided to give it try. Currently I use plain vanilla 2.6.8.1 kernel, patching/compiling/installing went with no problems, nor for fbsplash neither for splashutils. I created 240-color images for verbose and silent modes and they display correct. The only thing I'm stuck at is how to control progress bar from startup scripts?!? SuSE has /sbin/splash that is called from within /etc/rc.status, but it is from bootsplash-3.xxxx.rpm, and should be substituted by gensplash' /sbin/splash that provides similar functionality. I couldn't find one in splashutils tar archive. Can somebody provide Gentoo initscripts and /sbin/splash as examples? Or write how-to on moving to gensplash for other distros? Also I noticed that if I choose silent mode as default, boot process hangs immediately after displaying silent PNG splash - even after pressing F2 I get screen changed to verbose PNG, but still no system load... Kernel reacts to <Ctrl>+<Alt>+<Del> correctly, rebooting the system. Maybe this is due to missing /sbin/splash? Don't know... Anyway, please post gensplash' /sbin/splash script here or send me at alex (at) konekta (dot) ru. Yet another thing missing in docs and I had to guess - /dev/fbsplash device entry, here's how I mknod it:

Code: Select all

crw-r--r--    1 root     root      10,  63 2004-08-20 19:17 /dev/fbsplash

Are minor/major numbers correct (taken from /sys/class/misc/fbsplash/dev)?

Thanks in advance.

[AtomMan1]

Hi i am trying to get this up and running in Debian. Patching and compiling the kernel goes without a hitch and as I also use Gentoo on my other PC I am extremely familiar with all of the options that are needed in the kernel to get gentoo up and running - and in Gentoo everything runs as expected.

However in Debian (Sid) on bootup the boot process is halted after recieving several repeated messages about

Code: Select all

 etc/init.d/rcS

/proc/splash line 54

file not found

I had a look at the directory that the rcS file is referring to - and indeed there is (or at least was) no such file named 'slash' in there.

So I figured that this must be a gentoo specific thing. So I did all I was able to do and borrowed the 'splash' file from my Gentoo install and copied it over to my Debian install at the required directory.

Needless to say this didn't work as after a reboot the system continued to complain that the /proc/splash file did not exist.

So thinking things through I decided to check that I had enabled /proc file system support in my kernel. I had.

So I wonder if maybe the reason it can't see this file (or use it) is that either it is entirely Gentoo centric, or because there is a virtual file system mounted there and this is preventing the system from seeing it correctly?

Everything else appeared to go smoothly, patching was fine, compiling and installing the tools was fine, no other problems to report. it is possibly a little odd that the a missing file that relates purely to a bootup Jpeg could cause the kernel to halt and prevent it from booting - but again I confess I am uncertain as to what degree any of these patches and utilities are wholly Gentoo focused.

If this is the case I would find it dissapointing, since the new frambuffer drivers and gensplash potentially offer advantages to Linux users everywhere.

I used the latest patches avaiable from spock_s site for the 2.6.8.1 kernel and a .config file I know will boot under most normal conditions.

It is simply this one command that seems to halt the kernel.

Has anybody got any suggestions how I might fix it?

AT

[AtomMan1]

@Druke! Snap!

We are in a similar fix my friend! Gensplash and vesafb-tng should be for the world - and not just for gentoo. If they are indeed the 'next step' in frambuffer and bootsplash development, surely those advantages would be better if they were adpoted by everyone?

I understand the Author may want to make Gentoo the coolest - and in many ways it is! However there are certain environments in which it is not always the best solution.

Any help on how to get this going would indeed be appreciated.

Edit OK I solved those errors by simply pointing rcS to the 'splash' file which I located to a different physical directory (in my case /etc/init.d) rather than on the virtual file sytem. However the kernel still halts at the same location, (the part just after I get the message, 'setting up network interface. OK' ) It is whatever happens directly after this point that causes the kernel to halt. As some evidence of this, booting a copy of the same kernel with identical options, without the vesafb-tng and the gensplash patches works flawlessly.

What I wonder is happening?

AT

[woodwizzle]

I can't get this to work. Everyhing seems to be installed fine, (using the latest ck-sources)

Here is my grub.conf:

Code: Select all

title=GENTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH!
root (hd0,0)
kernel /2.6.8-ck3 root=/dev/hda3 video=vesafb:ywrap,pmipal,800x600-32@60 splash=silent,theme:emergence
initrd /boot/fbsplash-emergence-800x600

Gentoo boots as normal, and right before my login prompt I get a "can't open /dev/fbsplash"

Also, I am using an NV5900 based board if that might have anything to do with it.

[AtomMan1]

OK some further research....

This issue appears to be restricted to the vesafb-tng drivers. Selecting normal vesa drivers in the kernel allows you to get past this point and boot straight to the desktop.

And since Spock_ has said that gensplash will work with any drivers and does not require vesafb-tng to work, then at least in theory we should be good to go on on gensplash.

Indeed gensplash is active and does appear to work quite happily with the standard vesa drivers - though these appear somewhat more limited that the
vesafb-tng drivers would be.

However this may be more specific - and may be about the user selected resolutions and refresh rates in the kernel. I was fairly conservative (at least in choosing my referesh rate) and selected something I thought my monitor and video card (radeon 9800XT) could handle easily as an initial test. My choices were 1280x1024@60.

So maybe later I will try some different values, maybe a lower resolution at a higher refresh rate? Maybe this low refresh rate is not quite so well supported?

(Edit: this has now been tested and has had no effect. The vesafb-tng framebuffer drivers certainly appear broken on distros other than Gentoo).

I also found that it was still complaining a lot about not being able to find the file 'splash' at 'proc'. But this time it was when shutting down and it was the script 'rc' that was looking for it. I am not sure who this script belongs to, or whether it came with my distro,, but anyway (having no experience of such matters) my only option was to redirect the script to the 'splash' file and place it on a physical directory, rather than just in /proc (which being read only is why I presume it can't execute it).

This appeard to have some success, except it still gives me one error message immediately before the console closes and the system begins its reboot about the new location having switched to a read only state. I presume this is a normal part of the reboot process? Indeed I presume that what is happening is that by that time the script is attempting to execute at what is by then a non existant run level?

The question is how to deal with this and what does this file do? It seems very concerned with this file called spash which has the gensplash authors name pretty firmly stamped on it. It complains on shutdown that:

Code: Select all

/etc/init.d/rc line 110
/etc/init.d/splash 
read only file system

The full output of the rc file is as follows:

Code: Select all

#! /bin/sh
#
# rc  This file is responsible for starting/stopping
#  services when the runlevel changes.
#
#  Optimization feature:
#  A startup script is _not_ run when the service was
#  running in the previous runlevel and it wasn't stopped
#  in the runlevel transition (most Debian services don't
#  have K?? links in rc{1,2,3,4,5} )
#
# Author: Miquel van Smoorenburg <miquels@cistron.nl>
#  Bruce Perens <Bruce@Pixar.com>
#
# Version: @(#)rc  2.78  07-Nov-1999  miquels@cistron.nl
#

# Un-comment the following for debugging.
# debug=echo

#
# Start script or program.
#
startup() {
  case "$1" in
 *.sh)
  $debug sh "$@"
  ;;
 *)
  $debug "$@"
  ;;
  esac
}

  # Ignore CTRL-C only in this shell, so we can interrupt subprocesses.
  trap ":" INT QUIT TSTP

  # Set onlcr to avoid staircase effect.
  stty onlcr 0>&1

  # Now find out what the current and what the previous runlevel are.

  runlevel=$RUNLEVEL
  # Get first argument. Set new runlevel to this argument.
  [ "$1" != "" ] && runlevel=$1
  if [ "$runlevel" = "" ]
  then
 echo "Usage: $0 <runlevel>" >&2
 exit 1
  fi
  previous=$PREVLEVEL
  [ "$previous" = "" ] && previous=N

  export runlevel previous

  # Is there an rc directory for this new runlevel?
  if [ -d /etc/rc$runlevel.d ]
  then
 case "$runlevel" in
  0|6)
   j=0
   echo "show $j" > /etc/init.d/splash
   ;;
  *)
   j=42500
   ;;
 esac
 
 # First, run the KILL scripts.
 if [ $previous != N ]
 then
  for i in /etc/rc$runlevel.d/K[0-9][0-9]*
  do
   # Check if the script is there.
   [ ! -f $i ] && continue

                     echo "show $j" > /etc/init.d/splash
                     let j=j+1500
   # Stop the service.
   startup $i stop
  done
 fi
 
 # Now run the START scripts for this runlevel.
 for i in /etc/rc$runlevel.d/S*
 do
  [ ! -f $i ] && continue

  if [ $previous != N ] && [ $previous != S ]
  then
   #
   # Find start script in previous runlevel and
   # stop script in this runlevel.
   #
   suffix=${i#/etc/rc$runlevel.d/S[0-9][0-9]}
   stop=/etc/rc$runlevel.d/K[0-9][0-9]$suffix
   previous_start=/etc/rc$previous.d/S[0-9][0-9]$suffix
   #
   # If there is a start script in the previous level
   # and _no_ stop script in this level, we don't
   # have to re-start the service.
   #
   [ -f $previous_start ] && [ ! -f $stop ] && continue
  fi  
  
  case "$runlevel" in
   0|6)
                      if ((j < 65000))
                       then
                       echo "show $j" > /etc/init.d/splash
                       let j=j+7500
                      fi
    startup $i stop
    ;;
   *)
                      if ((j < 65000))
                       then
                       echo "show $j" > /etc/init.d/splash
                       let j=j+1500
                      fi
    startup $i start
    ;;
  esac
 done
  fi
# eof /etc/init.d/rc

The question is have I done something crazy by editing this to point to the file at a physical location? And also if it is complaining that the file tried to execute a command at line 110 when the computer was rebooting at a point when the file sytem had become read only, clearly whatever it was doing, or was supposed to do was incomplete.

So the other question is, how to fix this?

AT

[Headrush]

Woodwizzle,

Did you rc-update del bootsplash and then rc-update add default splash?

The old bootsplash startup scripts are probably still in init.d and they call /dev/fb0

Although Spock has said that gensplash will work with the old vesafb framebuffer driver, I have been unable to get it working. Gensplash works fine with the vesafb-tng driver.

Addition
Thanks to AtomMan1 I have it working. When using the old vesafb driver with gensplash, I need both the video=1024x768-16 and vga=0x317 in my GRUB config.

With this combination the framebuffer starts at early when the kernel is loaded, (no kernel messages displayed), then gensplash kicks it at its normal spot.

[Headrush]

Spock,

I know in your FAQ it says that the veasfb driver is an except to the other framebuffer drivers in that it loads during the kernel initialization, is there no way to have the vesa-tng driver do that or is it some kind of hack or impossible?

It's not a big deal but as someone trying to get new Windows users to use Linux, unfortunetally little things like eye-candy and cryptic (to them) kernel messages on bootup cause reservations. You would think speed and stability would be enough, but shows how good Microsoft marketing is.

Is there a way to block kernel messages on bootup until the framebuffer is initialized? Black text colour?

[AtomMan1]

OK gensplash is working now using the standard vesafb drivers - or at least sort of - on my debian box. I copied the theme files over from my gentoo box and set everything up as prescribed... I get the frambebuffer and an image and a box that looks like it's where the progress bar should be (but no progress bar yet). I checked the config files and the progress bar is set to =1 which as a positive I assume means progress bar = yes. The only problem is that the progress bar doesn't work - and nor does the silent switch quite work either. After a short while I get dropped back to the text box (still in framebuffer mode though with my chosen image in the background) after which the boot seequence continues normally. I assume that this has a lot (or everything?) to do with what I had to do above to get my machine to boot (and reboot) cleanly? The question is, how do I go about undoing this while ensuring that my system doesn't complain about not being able to read (or execute?) from /proc/splash as it did before?

Just out of interest my boot.lst file looks as follows:

Code: Select all

title MEPIS at hda3, kernel 2.6.8.1-test2
kernel (hd0,2)/boot/kernel-2.6.8.1 root=/dev/hda3 vga=791 video=1024x768-16@85 splash=silent
savedefault

This is some small progress. If anyone cold help me make the last few steps tpowards solving this I would be mightly grateful.

AT

[Druker]

AtomMan1,
I have exactly the same problem on SuSE 9... Seems that distros other than Gentoo lack some bits that make silent mode work (I suspect this is mainly /sbin/splash script - Gentoo users, post it here please!) I do get verbose mode with my PNG on background on boot without any problems but when I try to boot in silent mode system gets stuck... "Unable to find /proc/splash" comes from bootsplash /sbin/splash script, that is not compatible with gensplash. Genspash's /sbin/splash should use /sbin/splash_util instead of /sbin/splash.bin for drawing progress and the like, in a manner similar to 'splash_util --vc=0 -m s -p $PERCENTAGE -c repaint'. But there's no ANY docs on how it should do it exactly.

[AtomMan1]

Yes it is frustrating to have come this far and to be stuck at this juncture! Still at least I know I'm not alone!

One problem I envisage - though again I cannot confirm it - is that /proc on most other distros is not executable? In any case /proc/splash isn't readable from that location, even if you lift it directly from a gentoo install and place it there. (On a cold system - since like I said on a booted system you can't write to it). I have never seen an fstab with /proc mounted as writable, but who knows maybe this could help?

It's worth a stab I guess.

It seems trivial perhaps, but as has been pointed out above, in it's own not insignificant way, if it could be ported it would serve to enhance the wide scale adoption of Linux - in whatever form that might take. So I guess in that sense it is worthwhile.

AT

[untiefe]

Thanx for the great gensplash, snekiepete.
I just want to propose one thing: Please update your 5 easy steps, cause you don't need the theme option, I think... (it took me quite a while to see, that the theme:emergence option was the reason, for not working.)

Michael

[snekiepete]

Thanx for the great gensplash, snekiepete.
I just want to propose one thing: Please update your 5 easy steps, cause you don't need the theme option, I think... (it took me quite a while to see, that the theme:emergence option was the reason, for not working.)

Michael

the 5 easy steps is iinked straight to the dev's site.......

[untiefe]

the 5 easy steps is iinked straight to the dev's site.......

Oh

So I assume I should propose it to Spock and not you!?!

[snekiepete]

the 5 easy steps is iinked straight to the dev's site.......

Oh

So I assume I should propose it to Spock and not you!?!

to get the most bang out of your buck........

[rush_ad]

still now working for me. just boots up normaly without any error or gensplash. framebuffer is working. using love, gentoo-dev and nitro.

[dagonarth]

I need help with splashutils 0.9_pre07 (kernel love 2.6.8.1, gcc 3.3.4, newest glibc with nptl). There is one error when I tried to compile it.

Code: Select all

 CC      kernel/splash_kernel.o
In file included from splash_kernel.c:18:
/var/tmp/portage/splashutils-0.9_pre07/work/splashutils-0.9-pre07/linux/include/linux/fb.h:305: error: field `modelist' has incomplete type
make: *** [kernel/splash_kernel.o] Error 1