Tux at boot

Charlie Lewis clewis4 at hot.rr.com
Wed May 25 15:52:47 UTC 2005


On Wednesday 25 May 2005 09:08 am, Luis Murillo wrote:
> Ok, I did the changes and it works, except for the part where Tux
> appears :(
>
> But I'm going to try and get the bootsplash thing working :)
> Has anyone got the bootsplash working in Ubuntu?

Yes, I have it working on Hoary and I imagine there are any number of other's 
who do. I've done most of this before and it is archived webwise and on 
Google, but I'm not going to write a howto on it. ;-)

The default kernel config in the 2.6.10-5-386 kernel in 
the Graphics support section is

#Graphics support
#
CONFIG_FB=y
CONFIG_FB_VGA16=m
CONFIG_FB_VESA=m
CONFIG_VIDEO_SELECT=y

And in the Console display driver support it is
#Console driver support
#
CONFIG_VGA_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_MDA_CONSOLE=m
CONFIG_DUMMY_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE=m
# CONFIG_FONTS is not set
CONFIG_FONT_8x8=y
CONFIG_FONT_8x16=y
#
# Logo configuration
#
# CONFIG_LOGO is not set

So, in accordance with numerous articles on the web, I installed the kernel 
source, set my /etc/apt/sources.list to include

deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian testing main contrib non-free
deb http://www.bootsplash.de/files/debian unstable main
deb-src http://www.bootsplash.de/files/debian unstable main

did an update and then installed and patched the sources with 
bootsplash-3.1.4-2.6.10.diff, then I reconfigured my kernel  in accord with 
the following in the above listed sections, particularly paying attention to 
the note I have added pertaining to the vesafb. Also note that there are 
instructions and procedures for reconfiguring and recompiling the kernel that 
states you will need initrd support which is default in Debian and Ubuntu, 
but you still need to either mkinitrd or use the --initrd  switch if you use 
make-kpkg to build kernel and modules packages.

# Graphics support
#
CONFIG_FB=y
CONFIG_FB_VGA16=y
CONFIG_FB_VESA=y (this causes the vesafb to be compiled statically rather than 
as a module)
CONFIG_VIDEO_SELECT=y

# Console display driver support
#
CONFIG_VGA_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_MDA_CONSOLE=m
CONFIG_DUMMY_CONSOLE=y
CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE=y
# CONFIG_FONTS is not set
CONFIG_FONT_8x8=y
CONFIG_FONT_8x16=y
#
# Logo configuration
#
CONFIG_LOGO=y
CONFIG_LOGO_LINUX_MONO=y
CONFIG_LOGO_LINUX_VGA16=y
CONFIG_LOGO_LINUX_CLUT224=y

I then installed with apt-get the 

bootsplash
bootsplash-theme-ubuntu
sysv-rc-bootsplash

I also found, *for* *me* on my system, for some reason I haven't yet fully 
researched with Ubuntu, but resolved for myself the same way I did with 
Debian Sid and that particular Debanized and Ubuntanized and patched kernel, 
that once compiled, with the vesafb.c that is included in the source, I got 
only a blank console on boot. I went to kernel.org got the original source 
for the kernel, extracted the vesafb.c from it, replaced the version in my 
Ubuntu kernel sources and recompiled.

Along about here might be a good time to install your new kernel and initrd by 
what ever is your favorite method. ;-)

Okay, now there are a couple of different ways this can be done that are 
widely covered on the web, but one has to get the initrid setup for 
bootsplash if you're gonna have eye-candy. One is by running 
dpkg-reconfigure, if bootsplash is installed properly, the kernel is 
configured properly and all done right, will append what is necessary to 
the /boot/initrd.img (for which kernel you are  using, which in my case 
is  /boot/initrd.img-2.6.10.041805.

I would suggest paying a visit to 

http://www.bootsplash.org/kernel.html

And read everything there thoroughly. and then look at

http://www.bootsplash.de/

And read everything there thoroughly, because this writing by me is not meant 
to be an official howto, I'm doing it off the cuff and the top of my head and 
I tend to make mistakes on occasion at my age. ;-)

But anyway, "Somedays the magic works, and some days it don't" but if you have 
a good combination of luck and skill, after doing all the above, and the 
modifying  of you /boot/grub/menu.lst for your new kernel to read sumpin like

kernel     /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.10.041805 root=/dev/hdb2 ro vga=791 quiet 
splash=silent
initrd  /boot/initrd.img-2.6.10.041805

And then on rebooting you *might* boot up with a bootsplash with progress
bar from which you can hit f2 if you like and get a framebuffer console with 
logo and verbose boot.

Sheesh! I hope I haven't confused anyone more than I have myself and maybe 
caused some Kid to bork his Hoary. ;-)

CC







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