Date: Sat, 21 Sep 1996 15:34:32 -0500 (CDT) From: Joe Greco <jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com> To: brandon@glacier.cold.org (Brandon Gillespie) Cc: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: splash-page on bootup.. Message-ID: <199609212034.PAA14072@brasil.moneng.mei.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.91.960921123633.13788A-100000@glacier.cold.org> from "Brandon Gillespie" at Sep 21, 96 01:01:19 pm
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Ohhhh I started to feel sick when I saw this.. :-) > realized he had never seen this type of behaviour before, and assumed it > was errors or some other similar problem--and even after a bit of > explaning he was still somewhat uncomfortable with it. Gee, not like Microsoft products (*cough*.. DOS) didn't do this as a ritual part of the boot process for over a decade... > simple image from the disk or even simpler as a program that just draws > single pixel scattered shimmering stars and prints 'Booting FreeBSD > 2.1.x-XXXXblah'--or even as complex as an animated GIF showing the FreeBSD > daemon searching around with a flashlight ;) (the spash screen would > disappear at the end of rc file execution--at which point you could fire > up xdm or stick with getty's). You're in a difficult situation... even a static GIF image would probably be difficult because you don't know what you have for console until you have probed the video.. animation I would think is out of the question due to the way I understand the kernel works during the probe phase. ( Yes I know this has been discussed as a target for change, Terry :-) ) > What would this accomplish? Quite a bit IMHO. People have horrible > pre-conceptions in their mind about Free software, especially if they are > from the MSDOS/Windows arena because a LARGE majority of the free software > has been (and is still likely)--frankly put--virus infected crap. Coming > from this background it takes a lot of effort for somebody to give up > their prejudices--no matter how much it will save them or how much > 'better' it may be. Having a system which looks and feels professional to > them and which gives them the same fuzzy feeling will help them in > overcoming their notions and accepting the fact that using something else > may be a viable solution. A system that looks and feels professional to me is a system that does not hide every aspect of what the hell it is doing from me. Microsoft Windows 95 is unprofessional. It is slick in many ways... but just try to get it to do what you want, when you really know you want to do what it doesn't want to let you do. Solaris is (reasonably) professional. Although I hate to admit it: DOS is professional. It is simply not a good choice of "OS" (I use the term loosely). Hiding what the hell is going on is fine for the "chump" market... which largely consists of home users on Packard Bells, secretaries, and businessmen lugging their laptops around. > (read: professional == they consider Microsoft a viable solution because > they pay $xxxx for it and their friend over at corp X also uses it, > therefore it is a professional systems) That kind of logic scares me :-( I consider Microsoft to be crap and I usually consider corp X to be crap too when I see them relying on Microsoft for any "major" application. > Is it possible? I don't know, I am not familiar enough with the kernel. > Just figured I would let my opinion be known. 8) Now, the real question is, is it a bad idea? Maybe not. Maybe we just need a fancy (fancier) boot loader. ... JG
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