The Gentoo Framebuffer, Bootsplash & Grubsplash How-To

Message

darth · Post by **darth** » Sat Apr 26, 2003 10:35 pm

For all those people who couldn't get /proc/splash, I had the same problem at first then it dawned on me somehow to check if I am actually setting the right mode. And I wasn't!?

I checked this by doing:

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[18:17](darth@dagobah): dmesg| grep vesa                                                                                                                  
Kernel command line: root=/dev/hdb3 video=vesa:ywrap,mtrr vga=0x318
vesafb: framebuffer at 0xd0000000, mapped to 0xe0800000, size 32768k
vesafb: mode is 1024x768x32, linelength=2048, pages=0
...

Then I saw the "x32" and I said WTF? (really loud) So I looked at the mode table again *closely* and when I realized what I did I slapped my self on the forehead and put in 0x317 which gave me what I needed:

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[18:17](darth@dagobah): dmesg| grep vesa                                                                                                                  
Kernel command line: root=/dev/hdb3 video=vesa:ywrap,mtrr vga=0x317
vesafb: framebuffer at 0xd0000000, mapped to 0xe0800000, size 32768k
vesafb: mode is 1024x768x16, linelength=2048, pages=0
...

And the splash loaded...

In my haste to get the glorious bootsplash I incorrectly managed to see 16M as 16 bit (instead of 16 Million colors), duh?

It all works properly at 16 BIT so check if that might be your problem too! Bootsplash does not currently work at 32 bit yet so it will never load if you are at 32, or 8, or 24.

Cheers!

-D

PS - This was all done with gentoo-sources r3 which is already patched so all I had to do was emerge bootsplash, create the initrd and add it to the boot sequence.

mojo · Post by **mojo** » Sat Apr 26, 2003 11:07 pm

when you are interested in a working progressbar keep an eye on this topic and its posts:

http://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic.php?t=47612

maybe they will soon have a solution for the problem

katharsis · Post by **katharsis** » Sun Apr 27, 2003 3:36 am

Well, you wanted screenshots, here's mine:

http://www.geoshock.com/console.png

Thanks for the help

simcop2387 · Post by **simcop2387** » Sun Apr 27, 2003 12:30 pm

darth wrote:For all those people who couldn't get /proc/splash, I had the same problem at first then it dawned on me somehow to check if I am actually setting the right mode. And I wasn't!?
...
It all works properly at 16 BIT so check if that might be your problem too! Bootsplash does not currently work at 32 bit yet so it will never load if you are at 32, or 8, or 24.

THANK YOU i've been trying to figure this out myself, never realized that it doesn't work at 16 bit, i'll have to go and patch everything up so that it'll work at 32bit eventually, if i can figure it out that is....

mojo · Post by **mojo** » Sun Apr 27, 2003 2:51 pm

So guys this is for everyone who wants to have a progressbar at boottime

D-e-e wrote:

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I added the following into the function eend in the file /sbin/functions.sh.
Code:

if [ "${BOOT}" = "yes" ] && [ -z "${EBUILD}" -a -w /proc/splash ] && [ -s /dev/shm/ ]
    then
        if ! [ -e /dev/shm/progress_bar_counter ] ; then echo 0 > /dev/shm/progress_bar_counter ; fi
        NEW_VALUE=$(( `cat /dev/shm/progress_bar_counter` + 2849 ))
        echo "$NEW_VALUE" > /dev/shm/progress_bar_counter
        echo "show $NEW_VALUE" > /proc/splash
fi

Place the above code at the begining of the eend(){} function, so that it executes before the rest of the function does.

I came up with the number "2849" by adding the number of scripts that were called after the shared memory (/dev/shm) was mounted, added one to that number, and divided 65536 by it. Eg. 65536/(number_of_scripts + 1).

With this additon the progress bar animates smoothly without any hitches. Must have the following code in your fstab to mount /dev/shm
Code:
none                    /dev/shm        tmpfs           defaults               0 0

This code will only move the progress bar during BOOT.

you must do one change to the bootsplash init script to export the correct bootslpash image to console 2-5 and not the silent bootsplash:

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you will find in the start subsection in /etc/init.d/bootsplash this line:
 /sbin/splash -s -u $TTY /etc/bootsplash/${BOOTSPLASH_THEME}/config/bootsplash-$(/sbin/fbresolution).cfg

you have only to add a "-n" (without the "") after $TTY:

/sbin/splash -s -u $TTY -n /etc/bootsplash/${BOOTSPLASH_THEME}/config/bootsplash-$(/sbin/fbresolution).cfg

bcore · Post by **bcore** » Sun Apr 27, 2003 6:25 pm

fyi: The code in step #10 of the instructions has a typo (bootplash instead of bootsplash)

danb · Post by **danb** » Sun Apr 27, 2003 9:26 pm

...and dont be an ass; leave my aim friends alone

maw · Post by **maw** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 3:40 pm

I've got it working, now I can see I'm going to spend hours and hours looking for the perfect splash image to use. Lovely!

Actually, this was fairly painless, the painful part of my latest kernel modifications was that ACPI breaks networking in 2.4.20 for some reason. I'm sure it was fine in 2.4.19... ah well.

Excellent instructions.

scocou · Post by **scocou** » Mon Apr 28, 2003 11:35 pm

Works great! I might add that scroll-back buffering DOES work <shift+PgUp> as expected (not to be contrary

). I think links looks beautiful using the fb driver, as well as lynx on the console... here's a few pics; http://members.shaw.ca/sbc/pics

jondkent · Post by **jondkent** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 8:34 am

Got it working fine with the latest XFS kernel, no patching required either for that kernel btw

grub config is:

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kernel /boot/bzImage root=/dev/hda4 video=mtrr,vesa:1024x768 vga=0x317

Gonna play around with frame buffer apps when I get a minute

Cheers for the howto

moonclimber · Post by **moonclimber** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 2:39 pm

I am using lilo not grub, and I config my lilo.conf like this:

vga=0x317

image=/boot/my_kernel
append="video=vesa:1024x768@85"
.....

But in console mode , it seems useless for screen refreshing

maw · Post by **maw** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 4:12 pm

Got me a screenshot (not guaranteed to stay up for very long)

http://www.alledora.co.uk/images/fb0.jpg

Picture's from when I was playing with my camera in the park the other day.

zenzei · Post by **zenzei** » Tue Apr 29, 2003 4:15 pm

Narada wrote: Trivia: Mplayer on framebuffer: Try 'emerge mplayer' and then 'mplayer -vo svga <filename>'. Have you managed to get mplayer working under framebuffer? If so, post details!

Lo all!

I use mplayer on my fbdev without any problems, and it looks very well! I use it on my laptop to watch movies, so the 60Hz problem isnt important for my LCD.

This is my commandline

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mplayer -ao alsa9 -sws 2 -autoq 100 -vo fbdev -zoom -fs -vop scale -xy 1024 some_video_file.avi

important parameters:

-ao _whatever_your_sound_device_is(try help) and -vo fbdev

the rest is just for scaling fullscreen with good quality.
Ah! If possible (beware: doesnt work with bootsplash!) set your fb to 24bits, for better colors whenever you are watching a movie. (vga=792 for 1024x768x24bits)

My USE flags for my mplayer are:

[ebuild R ] media-video/mplayer-0.90_rc5 +dga +oss +jpeg -3dfx +sse -matrox +sdl +X +svga +ggi +oggvorbis +3dnow +aalib +gnome +xv +opengl +truetype +dvd +gtk +gif +esd +fbcon +encode +alsa +directfb +arts

you probably only need the fbcon directfb and your_sound_device flags for it to work. (plus anything you want - sse and 3dnow are nice for speeding up!)

Also, take note that I'm using 2.5.68 (tried and worked with 66-67 also); the latest kernels (2.5.XX, specially the 66,67,68) have a LOT of updates in the framebuffer area (check kernel.org changelogs); right now I can switch X to fbdev to X to fbdev+mplayer, fbdev+links, etc etc without any glitch. (and my external monitor is autodetected) - no luck with refresh rates yet though.

Greetings

Martin.

iwasbiggs · Post by **iwasbiggs** » Wed Apr 30, 2003 1:35 am

Working in relatively minimal time. Thank you Neko K for that bugzilla link!! Without it I wouldn't have figured out the framebuffer problem!

No progress bar, but no big deal!

1 gig+ ram
msi geforce 4200ti
vanilla 2.40.20

TheEternalVortex · Post by **TheEternalVortex** » Thu May 01, 2003 1:14 am

I finally had time to play around with it

, and I think it's not too bad at all.

FormerSlacker · Post by **FormerSlacker** » Thu May 01, 2003 10:33 pm

Great article Narada! Followed it and low and behold, it works. I'm using kernel 2.4.20-gaming-r2.

Here are some screens of my configuration here and here.

Just one quirk, you list the command to create the initrd file as:

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/sbin/splash -s -f /etc/bootsplash/default/config/bootsplash-1280x1024.cfg > /boot/initrd-1280x1024

However, in your example grub.conf file, you give the root path for the initrd file.

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initrd=/initrd-1280x1024

But following your splash example, it should be...

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initrd=/boot/initrd-1280x1024

I had some problems myself until I added boot, then it all magicly worked

Jimbow · Post by **Jimbow** » Thu May 01, 2003 10:41 pm

It all depends on whether or not /boot is on a separate partition (and whether it was mounted when initrd was created

).

FormerSlacker · Post by **FormerSlacker** » Thu May 01, 2003 10:45 pm

Jimbow wrote:It all depends on whether or not /boot is on a separate partition (and whether it was mounted when initrd was created ).

Good point

coolvibe · Post by **coolvibe** » Fri May 02, 2003 1:37 am

This is indeed pretty cool...

Here's a dump of my console:

http://www.hackerheaven.org/screenshots/console.png

It's just the default 1024x786 config, supplied by the ebuild, I just replaced the image. Nothing fancy. I like this backdrop because it's nice and dark, and white text displays well on this.

scosol · Post by **scosol** » Fri May 02, 2003 5:19 am

Werx for me- on a Fujitsu P2040:
http://www.thedenofsin.org/projects/msg ... e.jpg/view

Jimbow · Post by **Jimbow** » Fri May 02, 2003 6:33 am

I had something funny happen with the splash program. I was using it a lot to test out and edit bootsplash config files. After a while it started sending output to the screen each time it was run. I could not redirect this output to /dev/null, it seems it wasn't on stdout or stderr. After a reboot (laptop), it went back to silent mode.

beejay · Post by **beejay** » Fri May 02, 2003 9:54 am

...you can't work with this flickering Picture.

But no matter what - here is mine :

http://www.judas-merlau.de/benni/screenshots/fb.png

Just default, just a test.

But Thanks Narada for this guide

moixa · Post by **moixa** » Fri May 02, 2003 1:40 pm

And works very nice for me.

Kernel xfs-sources-r3 does have the patch already included too.

blscreen · Post by **blscreen** » Fri May 02, 2003 2:30 pm

It took me a while to get the point that this will only work with a 16 bpp framebuffer. With other colordepths /proc/splash will not appear => no bootsplash.
It is possible to use a framebuffer driver for specific hardware and to get nice refreshrates like 75 Hz, but for some reasons this seems not to work with matroxfb and initrd. When I try to boot into a 16 bpp framebuffer + initrd, the boot process just stops after displaying the kernel comandline parameters.... strange
Without initrd everything is fine, I can set the picture after booting with splash.

uziel · Post by **uziel** » Fri May 02, 2003 2:51 pm

Framebuffer erotica! Up and running in no time, kernel update was due anyway...
Thanks a lot for that howto!

Sincerely
Chris

The Gentoo Framebuffer, Bootsplash & Grubsplash How-To

Possible solution to missing /proc/splash

Re: Possible solution to missing /proc/splash

Re: The Gentoo Framebuffer, Bootsplash & Grubsplash How-

Yet another sucess story :)

Another success story :)

Great but...

This is cool!

Thanks!