[Debsplash-devel] Usplash question: a program is ready, but can we call it usplash?

Luis M lemsx1 at gmail.com
Fri Apr 8 14:25:15 CDT 2005


usplash is a prefect name.

On Apr 8, 2005 1:11 PM, Vincenzo Ampolo <vincenzo.ampolo at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi to all
> 
> This email is asking a question about what to call a program that
> follows
> the Ubuntu 'usplash' ideas (described on the wiki).  Whether to name the
> program 'usplash' or instead to call it something else?
> 
> Introduction & Debsplash
> 
> A year ago, we started talking about a new generation 'bootsplash'-style
> system for Debian, written in userspace and not requiring kernel
> patches.
> At first there was a case of porting the Gentoo 'fbsplash' code to run
> in a
> Debian environment.  This we called 'debsplash' (Debian Splash).
> 
>   http://cvs.alioth.debian.org/cgi-bin/cvsweb.cgi/debsplash/debsplash/
> 
> Userspace splash
> 
> During the end of 2004, we came across the Ubuntu ideas for something
> called
> called 'usplash'.  All the ideas ('specification') for how to create
> working
> splash system are described in a page on the Ubuntu wiki:
> 
>   http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/USplash
> 
> In few words, it plans:
> 
>   1) a image displayer (used for initrd/very early boot)
>   2) a server/daemon   (used during main bootup)
>   3) a notify program  (used to send events to the daemon)
> 
> and it works like this:
> 
>   The image displayer displays a picture during initrd and then exits.
>   (It is completely separate to the rest of the 'usplash' ideas, but
>   the test code does use the same drawing library).
> 
>   The main server/daemon is started later during boot;  It is sent
> messages
>   to 'upgrade' the display by the notify program.  The server responds
> to
>   these events by updating progress-bars and animations...
> 
> But... The 'debsplash' team, after spending 2 weeks studying the Ubuntu
> wiki usplash page began thinking about another, better and less
> resource-intensive approach.
> 
> >From December I started studying what was on the wiki page and started
> to
> develop something based on the ideas. In few weeks I saw that the
> project
> designed on the Ubuntu wiki page was too huge.
> 
> The 'agents' are split into many programs and all of them should be
> placed
> on '/sbin' instead of '/usr', since '/usr' is not always accessible at
> boot
> time since it may not be part of the root-partition (if /usr is a
> network
> partition we should wait until 70% of the entire boot time).
> 
> I believe that the various split programs will loose a lot of time
> calling
> each other to pass update messages...
> 
> So I started exploring another approach: Have only one program (or maybe
> two; one for during booting-up and another one for when the computer is
> shutdown)---all the problems relating to communications are solved and
> it
> should be faster than old approach.
> 
> I started using C and 'libmagick++', than thanks to Ubuntu beta-testers
> (users I met on the Ubuntu forums and who have helped test the program)
> we
> switched to C++ and a library called '++dfb'.
> 
> I met sladen and learned a lot about issues with framebuffers and he
> helped
> me write some code.
> 
> Now, at the beginning of March, I think the program is ready and it
> works
> great, it doesn't extend the bootup-time very much since all the stuff
> is
> done by a forked child process.
> 
> I've had alot of success in the Ubuntu forums, with a lot of people
> wanting
> to try it and they've leave their feedback (look at the following
> starting
> from page 10 and read until the end)(My nickname on the forum is
> Goshawk):
> 
> http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=14731&page=14&pp=10&highlight=usplash
> 
> I have called this new project 'usplash' because it means Usermode
> Splash
> and it was (and it is) the first usermode bootsplash in the World.
> 
> One of my readers asked: ''Why are you writing this?  Now we are almost
> ready for a usplash-0.1 release but we can't since we need your [the
> Ubuntu
> developers] consensus to use that name that was thought by Ubuntu
> developers
> first.'' (and relates to the design ideas on the Ubuntu wiki).
> 
> Information about my usplash (this usplash) can be found at:
> 
>   http://wiki.nanofreesoft.org/index.php/UsplashHowDoesItWork
> 
> Can we have your consensus.  Can we use the 'usplash' name or should I
> choose a different one?
> 
>    -Vincenzo Ampolo
> 
> (Spelling/Grammar checked by Paul Sladen, the
> views expressed are those of Vincenzo Ampolo).
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> Debsplash-devel at lists.alioth.debian.org
> http://lists.alioth.debian.org/mailman/listinfo/debsplash-devel
> 


-- 
----)(----- 
Luis M
System Administrator
Kiskeyix.org 

"We think basically you watch television to turn your brain off, and
you work on your computer when you want to turn your brain on" --
Steve Jobs in an interview for MacWorld Magazine 2004-Feb

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