plymouth - fbdev based graphical boot



INSTALL



Get the SRPMS and rpmbuild --rebuild them.  libpng-static is a build

requirement of mkinitrd so build and install that before building

mkinitrd.  To build the kernel SRPM, pass --target i686 to rpmbuild.



  libpng-1.2.10-1.plymouth.src.rpm

  initscripts-8.33-1.src.rpm

  mkinitrd-5.0.34-1.plymouth.src.rpm

  SysVinit-2.86-3.plymouth.src.rpm

  rhgb-0.16.3-1.plymouth.src.rpm

  kernel-2.6.16-1.2139_FC6.plymouth.src.rpm



Then install them and run (as root) mkinitrd to create an initrd for

your current kernel that has the graphical boot bits in it:



  $ mkinitrd /boot/plymouth-initrd-$(uname -r) $(uname -r)



Run grubby to add an entry to /etc/grub.conf:



  $ grubby --grub --copy-default \

	--title="Plymouth $(uname -r)" \

	--add-kernel=/boot/vmlinuz-$(uname -r) \

	--initrd=/boot/plymouth-initrd-$(uname -r).img \

	--args="vga=0x318 rhgb quiet"



or hand-edit /etc/grub.conf if you prefer and make an entry that boots

with the new initrd and passes vga=0x318, rhgb, and quiet on the

kernel command line.



Edit /etc/inittab to not start a tty on vt0:



  $ sed -ie 's/1:2345/# 1:2345/' /etc/inittab



Reboot!





HOW IT WORKS



We're using the kernel fbdev driver to initialize the display to

1024x768 24bpp as soon as the kernel boots up.  At this point the

kernel boots up with a black background and shows a picture of a fat

penguin.  The kernel patch disables the Linux logo and re-enables the

quiet boot mode.  I'd like to teach the kernel to clear the background

color to the background color set by nash later on, but for now the

patch just makes it boot into a black 1024x768.  This solid color

background patch and using fbdev are the only changes to the kernel.



A few seconds after the kernel boots, the initrd starts up.  The

changes to initrd includes making nash less chatty in quiet mode, and

adding a 'logo' command to the nash shell that it can load and display

a fedora PNG logo from the initrd.



Next step is rhgb.  The changes to rhgb replaces all the X server

startup/hand-holding code and the gtk+ progress screen and just paints

on the fbdev using cairo.  Other than that, most of the rhgb progress

feedback is reused, the initscripts report back to rhgb throughout the

boot process as they have always done.





NEXT STEPS



- Silence grub completely - don't show the menu, don't show the info

  about what we're booting, don't show anything.  Enter the menu only

  if the user holds down some key.



- Fall back to text mode in rhgb if something fails, or at least make

  a note of it and let the user review the log at a later time.  Also,

  probably bind Esc or some key to drop back into full textual boot.



- Actually write the kernel patch to initialize the fbdev to a given

  solid color.



- Make the transition from the rhgb fbdev into X smoother.  Don't do

  mode-setting in X and reuse framebuffer contents when possible or

  crazy-talk like that.