Patching the Kernel/Bootsplash/Services

[Chris McLeod]

Hi there. I've just switched to Ubuntu (from Fedora) this weekend and
I'm finding it's fantastic! Just got a couple of things I wanted to
ask though.

Question 1: I've got a laptop with a buggy ACPI implementation
(Samsung X10). As such, it needs the ACPI patch to enable using an
override DSDT in the initrd (http://gaugusch.at/kernel.shtml). How
would I go about patching the kernel to include this? Would I have to
start with a fresh, base 2.6.8.1 kernel from kernel.org and apply
patches to that? Or can I patch the kernel that comes with Ubuntu? If
so, is there anything I should be aware of? What about the initrd?

Question 2: Is there a way to have bootsplash (or fbsplash/gensplash)
enabled? I read somewhere (the wiki?) that it's in the kernel, so is
it just not set up to be used? Or is that info wrong? One thing I miss
about Fedora, is the nice graphical boot screen. It's nothing
earth-shattering if it's not there, but it's nice to have, y'know!

Question 3: I may be blind here, but I can't seem to find the utility
for stopping services/editing which ones fire up at boot, etc. From
what I can tell, Gnome System Tools comes as standard in Ubuntu - but
I can't find the services tool? Is it there? If so, where?

Thanks for any help you can give!

Chris