[Splashy-devel] Splash during kernel startup

[Tim Dijkstra]

On Wed, 24 Jan 2007 14:31:27 -0800
"Eric Moret" <eric.moret at gmail.com> wrote:

> > Nothing can start before the kernel... 
> 
> ... Unless the kernel is patched and displays the splash itself.
> 
> Maybe the documentation should state this more clearly? Even people on the
> lkml seem to be mislead by the user vs kernel space nature of splashy and
> use this as an argument to dismiss inclusion of the fbsplash patch into main
> line.
> http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/8/11/161

[ I didn't read the link yet ]

splashy is purely userspace. The goal is to launch from 'early
userspace', from initramfs. That way we can start splashy before
modules are loaded, udev is started, / is mounted, before pretty much
anything happened. In other words: we don't need to be in the kernel!

As I stated before, this is not usable yet, but will be in the near
future. You can experiment with it, but the boot process takes 2min longer:(

The people on lklm, want to keep the kernel as clean/simple as possible,
certainly the boot process. Splash screens are not clean. I don't think
there will ever be a splash screen in the mainline kernel.

> Most other linux splash projects have userspace components in addition to
> the patched kernel. In the absense of a patched kernel they just behave the
> same way as splashy (support for various resolutions and depth on vesafb +
> progress bar). 

Which are? The one from bootsplash.org certainly does not work without
a patch. The only other system I'm aware about that doesn't need a
patched kernel is usplash from ubuntu.

> I believe the splashy project should differentiate itself
> from other splash projects by not putting so much emphasis on userspace.

I don't understand. Emphasis by _not_ stressing we're purely userspace?

grts Tim