A new enhanced bootsplash

• Student: SeiyaNuta (seiya@)
• Mentor: KrisMoore (kmoore@)

I propose a new bootsplash mechanism. Currently, we can enable bootsplash by adding few options such as splash_bmp_load to /boot/loader.conf but it only displays an image file so I cannot reassure that the system works well. Therefore, I want to develop a new bootsplash mechanism which enables enhancements of attractiveness, such as progress bar. I think this will greatly improve user experience. I’m planning to implement this using src/sys/dev/fb, SYSINIT and kernel module system.

A bootsplash theme is a kernel module which implements these handler functions.

Draw image before kernel thread mechanism is activated. It is called before copyright printed.

Add a kernel thread to update screen periodically if needed. It is called after kernel thread mechanism is activated.

Print a message if needed. msg is a kernel messsage. It is called each lines of kernel messages.

Advance the position of progress bar if needed. It is called before each SYSINIT element initialization.

It is called after almost booted.

The bootsplash system holds a array of struct bsplash_layer below. Themes receives pointers of them by bsplash_new_*_layer*() and manipulate variables.

struct bsplash_layer{
  void* data;             /* The pointer to content of a file/text. */
  int screen_y, screen_x; /* Position on screen. */
  int image_y, image_x;   /* Stating on the image.     It is unused in text layers. */
  int height;             /* The height of this layer. It is unused in text layers. */
  int width;              /* The width of this layer.  It is unused in text layers. */
  int visibility;         /* 0: visible, 1: hidden */
  int z-index;            /* The stack order of layers. A layer with the greater value is drawn above layers with lesser value. */
};

• void bsplash_drawImage(const char *filename): Draw image (.pcx or .bmp) in the screen. It determines file type by the extension.
• struct bsplash_layer *bsplash_new_image_layer(const char *filename): Create a layer with a image (.pcx or .bmp) file. I want to support .png files with libpng.
• struct bsplash_layer *bsplash_new_text_layer(const char *text): Create a layer with a text.
• void bsplash_draw_layers(): Draw layers.
• void bsplash_go_text_mode(): Go back into text mode.

Load splash images by /boot/splash/splash.4th (auto generated)

# loader.rc
include /boot/splash/splash.4th
 
# splash.4th
load -t splash_image /boot/splash/image_1.bmp
load -t splash_image /boot/splash/image_2.bmp
 
# ...

I'll develop a theme which can parse an extended configuration file based on https://wiki.freebsd.org/OliverFromme/BootLoader. It makes creating bootsplash theme more easier. The extended theme.conf looks like this:

theme_background="/boot/themes/default/biglogo.pcx"
theme_font="/boot/themes/default/default.font"
theme_bgcolor="0 0 0"           # black
theme_fgcolor="255 255 255"     # white
theme_options_xy="64 10"
theme_actions_xy="64 82"
 
# ***** extended configuration are as follows *****
extended_theme_enable="YES" # it enables configurations below
 
#
#  Bootsplash system loads files specified in `theme_progress_images' to 
#  draw a progress bar.
#
#  `%' will be replaced with 10,20,30,...,100. You have to prepare 
#  progress_bar10.pcx, progress_bar20.pcx, ..., progress_bar100.pcx in 
#  /boot/themes/default.
#
theme_progress_bar_enable="YES"
theme_progress_bar_images="/boot/themes/default/progress_bar%.pcx"
theme_progress_bar_xy="150 300"
 
#
#  Bootsplash system loads files speicifed in `theme_boot_animation_images' 
#  to render a animation on boot.
#
#  `%' will be replaced with 1,2,3,...,100.
#  You have to prepare animation1.pcx at least in /boot/themes/default.
#
theme_boot_animation_enable="YES"
theme_boot_animation_images="/boot/themes/default/animation%.pcx"
theme_boot_animation_xy="150 100"
theme_boot_animation_fps="15"
theme_boot_animation_repeat="YES"
 
# Bootsplash system updates it per lines.
theme_boot_kmsg_enable="YES"
theme_boot_kmsg_xy = "150 400"

• Implementation of a new bootsplash mechanism in the kernel
• Makefile and scripts for creating bootsplash themes
• Example themes

• May 19: Start of coding
• May 19 - May 25: implement direct drawing (only draw an image file at once just like splash_bmp_load, but it enables rendering multiple image files)
• May 26 - June 8: add changes to src/sys
• June 9 - June 15: write Makefile and scripts for creating themes
• June 16 - June 22: create and enjoy a flip book in bootsplash using direct drawing
• July 27: Mid-term evaluations deadline
• June 23 - June 29: print characters in a framebuffer
• June 30 - July 20: implement layered drawing (draw stacked images and text at once)
• July 21 - July 27: support layered drawing in scripts for creating themes
• July 28 - 'pencils down' date: create themes
• August 11: End of coding (soft)
• August 18: End of coding (hard)

• Write code in VM on VirtualBox
• make and copy generated kernel and modules to /boot
• Launch .vdi of the VM with QEMU on host OS
• Check output and dmesg

• make buildinstall on a real machine.
• boot it
• check output and dmesg

https://svnweb.freebsd.org/socsvn/soc2014/seiya