UI considerations with gfxboot

[daniele favara]

On 12/20/05, Colin Watson <cjwatson at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 19, 2005 at 10:34:42PM +0100, daniele favara wrote:
> > On 12/19/05, Colin Watson <cjwatson at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> > > On Mon, Dec 19, 2005 at 09:04:56PM +0100, daniele favara wrote:
> > > > i see that suse isolinux can load jpg images as background but you use
> > > > a syslinux image ... isn't syslinux from dupper patched for that ?
> > >
> > > I don't understand you. Can you please elaborate?

first of all i'm sorry ... i could take a deeper look on you pkge ..
and it's what i'm doing now.

i'm proud you pkged gfxboot almost in the same way i did :) ... really
few differencies.

I'm still on breezy and i'm compiling syslinux and gfxboot on it, i
didn't see the gfxboot-ubuntu-theme, and i will make a similar one for
my project .. so i'll need just to maintain such pkge. Thanks :)

> > from what i see in last dapper cdrom you don't use a jpg as  background
> > image but
> >
> >    splash.rle: Syslinux SLL16 image data, 639 x 320
>
> That's only for the old-style display file used in <= breezy.

Ok .. i supposed it

> > or
> >
> >   splash.pcx: PCX ver. 3.0 image data bounding box [0, 0] - [639, 479],
> > 8-bit colour, 72 x 72 dpi, RLE compressed
>
> Yes, we can use either a JPEG image or a PCX image here. I chose to use
> a PCX image because it's only 20KB and I don't see what lossy
> compression buys us here.

yes that's true ..

I don't see the pcx image within gfxboot-ubuntu-theme but i can
understand it's a new pkge and i think it'll be added as the Makefile
you used to generate the bootlogo.

Q: is it possible to use "gfxboot: init" instead of using the bootlogo
(that contains init + languages)?

> > and even a splash image (greetings.jpg + splash.jpg) if you use the init
> > generated from install and not from boot.
>
> Sure, but our theme is different and doesn't look for those files.
> You're welcome to use the SuSE theme if you like, although of course
> you'll have to hack it up to deal with booting Ubuntu properly.
> Alternatively, change the Ubuntu theme to work with whatever files you
> want.

but if i use my own bootlogo (or init) shouldn't it look for those files ?

I generate my theme within "theme" dir typing make,using my modified
*.inc files and using install as target, i like the greetings splash
message :)

> > i'm using SUSE isolinux and i think there is a really nice feature that i
> > didn't see in dapper:
> >
> > help menu.
>
> The code for this is still there; we just don't have the help files
> installed yet, that's all. I'll deal with this eventually.
>

ok .. nice to know .. the help menu generated from html files is really useful.

> > when i discovered that dapper was using the patched syslinux i tried to make
> > a bootable iso using its isolinux.bin and the old tree i was using:
> >
> > 16x16.fnt
> > back.jpg
> > dots.jpg
> > en.hlp
> > en.tr
> > greeting.jpg
> > head_a.jpg
> > init
> > initramfs.gz
> > isolinux.bin
> > isolinux.cfg
> > it.tr
> > lang
> > languages
> > log
> > splash.jpg
> > vmlinuz
> >
> >
> > but it seems it doesn't work ....
>
> Yes, these file names are mostly handled by the theme code, not
> syslinux/gfxboot. I have no interest in attempting to support file name
> compatibility with the SuSE theme, but you're welcome to adjust
> gfxboot-theme-ubuntu to do whatever you like.

the same here, but as i asked before shouldn't those files be handled
by "init" within or not bootlogo?

so if i compile my own theme code (and let me know if i'm wrong
please) i should just copy the files within the "isolinux" dir and
type mkisofs ....

> > i'm really interested on having this syslinux on dapper with the same
> > features that has the SUSE one ...
>
> Apart from the help menu (which, as I say, I'll add as soon as I manage
> to massage the d-i boot screens into the right format; it won't be until
> 2006 now though), you haven't actually listed any missing features, only
> some differing file names. If you want to work with the SuSE theme, do
> so. If you want to work with the Ubuntu theme, you'll have to put up
> with its different file name expectations.

i would work with my theme, making a pkge like gfxboot-ubuntu-theme,
making it dependent on gfxboot and syslinux.

This is perfect because in this way i can cut off some variables on
non booting iso, for example if a machine can find dapper bootloader
but not mine i'll know it doesn't depend on isolinux.bin.

It happened that some users has reported that my iso was not bootable
... and when this happens it's really difficult to debug ... was it a
burning issue ? (i use and reuse cd rw for ex ) or was it isolinux ?
or was it the bios ?

it would be really nice to know what cmd you use to generate the bootable iso,

here is mine:

if [ -e "$SRC/isolinux/isolinux.bin" ];then
         mkisofs -v -V "name" -r -J -l -L -P "Proj name" \
     -b "isolinux/isolinux.bin" \
     -c "isolinux/boot.cat" \
     -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 -boot-info-table \
     -graft-points -o $DEST \
     $SRC
else

PS: gfxboot-theme-ubuntu
to fix
-  install -m644 Makefile languages *.config *.dat *.fnt *.inc *.jpg

*.dat kroete nightmare is gone :)

PS: isolinux.bin
is its path hardcoded ?... i mean .. should i use '-b
"isolinux/isolinux.bin" ' and nothing else ? or i can change its path
?

thanks

ciao

DF