A new enhanced bootsplash

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

$ cd /tmp
$ svn co https://socsvn.freebsd.org/socsvn/soc2014/seiya/bootsplash bsplash
$ cd bsplash/sys/amd64/conf
$ cp GENERIC BSPLASH
$ echo 'device bsplash' >> BSPLASH
$ config -d /tmp/build BSPLASH

$ cd /tmp/build
$ MAKESYSPATH=/tmp/bsplash/share/mk make -j2 KERNCONF=BSPLASH

# cd /boot
# cp -r kernel kernel.old
# cd /tmp/bsplash
# MAKESYSPATH=/tmp/bsplash/share/mk make -j2 install

# cd /tmp
# pkg install ImageMagick python py27-pillow
# git clone https://github.com/nuta/bsplash-utils.git utils
# cd utils/test
# make enable

# cp /etc/rc /etc/rc.old
# cp /tmp/bsplash/etc/rc /etc/rc

# cd /boot/defaults
# cp loader.conf loader.conf.old
# cp /tmp/bsplash/sys/boot/forth/loader.conf loader.conf

# cd /tmp/utils
# bsplash-fix-grub-cfg /boot/loader.conf /boot/grub/grub.cfg > tmp
# mv tmp /boot/grub/grub.cfg

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 system follows configurations in /boot/splash/foo/loader.conf like this:

bsplash_image_name="/boot/splash/foo/image.bmp"
bsplash_image_load="YES"
 
bsplash_background_y_origin="0"
 
bsplash_progress_bar_y_origin="800"
bsplash_progress_bar_height="30"
bsplash_progress_bar_width="500"
 
bsplash_animation_y_origin="1100"
bsplash_animation_height="300"
bsplash_animation_width="300"
bsplash_animation_repeat="YES"

• bsplash-create loads theme.conf and generates configuration for /boot/loader.conf and generates an image just like CSS sprites.
• bsplash-install copies files generated by bsplash-create into /boot/splash.
• bsplash-change overwrites bsplash configuration in /boot/loader.conf with /boot/splash/theme-name/loader.conf.

#
#  example: create a theme named "foobar" and then change bootsplash to this
#
 
$ cat /boot/loader.conf
if_em_load="YES"
autoboot_delay="1"
### bsplash start ###
bsplash_image_name="/boot/splash/foo/image.bmp"
bsplash_image_load="YES"
# configuration continues...
### bsplash end ###
$ ls background.bmp 
background.bmp
$ ls animation*.bmp
animation0.bmp  animation10.bmp animation12.bmp animation14.bmp animation2.bmp  animation4.bmp  animation6.bmp  animation8.bmp
animation1.bmp  animation11.bmp animation13.bmp animation3.bmp  animation5.bmp  animation7.bmp  animation9.bmp
$ ls progressbar*.bmp                                                                                                                                                                                              
progressbar0.bmp        progressbar20.bmp       progressbar40.bmp       progressbar60.bmp       progressbar80.bmp
progressbar10.bmp       progressbar30.bmp       progressbar50.bmp       progressbar70.bmp       progressbar90.bmp
 
# create
$ bsplash-create --background=background.bmp \
                 --progress-bar='progressbar*.bmp' \
                 --animation='animation*.bmp' \
                 --repeat-animation \
                 image.bmp loader.conf
# install
$ sudo bsplash-install foobar image.bmp loader.conf
# change to foobar
$ sudo bsplash-change foobar
$ cat /boot/loader.conf
if_em_load="YES"
autoboot_delay="1"
### bsplash start ###
bsplash_image_name="/boot/splash/foobar/image.bmp"
bsplash_image_load="YES"
# configuration continues...
### bsplash end ###

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

• 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
• https://github.com/nuta/bsplash-utils