ACC SHELL

Introduction

   Welcome to the graphical world of Linux!

   This is the home of the graphical boot process for the linux kernel
   although it is not yet a part of the official kernel. It is, however
   included in several major distributions. If your favorite linux
   distribution isn't listed in the bottom left corner send them an email
   requesting it to be included!

   Features:
     * Nice graphics (JPEG)
     * Antialiased text rendering (TrueType)
     * Animations (MNG)
     * Progress Bar
     * Display / Hiding of boot messages
     * Fully themeable

   This information, plus a lot more, themes, updates, and so on can be
   found at http://www.bootsplash.org/

   Project Maintainer: Stefan Reinauer <stepan@bootplash.org>
   Graphical consultant: Kenneth Wesley Wimer II <kwwii@bootplash.org>

   User space stuff
    1. When you have a kernel with bootsplash capability (see [10]Kernel
       stuff) you can use the bootsplash and control it's behaviour with
       a set of userspace utilities:
          + "splash" is used to attach a picture to an initrd or change
            the picture while the system is running. splash can also be
            used to trigger command execution when a specified runlevel
            script is reached. This can for example be used to show
            animations during bootup. Download it at
            ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/people/stepan/bootsplash/rpm-sourc
            es/bootsplash/splashutils.tar.bz2
          + "fbresolution", written by Florent Villard
            (warly@mandrakesoft.com) shows the currently used resolution.
          + "fbmngplay" is a utility to display mng animations on the
            framebuffer console using libmng. fbmngplay is official part
            of libmng. Download the latest version from
            ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/people/stepan/bootsplash/rpm-sources/bootsplash/fbmngplay-0.5a.tar.bz2
          + "fbtruetype" is a utility to render text using a truetype
            font to the framebuffer console. Download the latest version
            from
            ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/people/stepan/bootsplash/rpm-sources/bootsplash/fbtruetype-0.2.tar.bz2
            The kernel bootsplash can be configured using the
            /proc/splash interface. To be able to use script triggered
            startup actions such as moving a progress bar, you have to
            patch your runlevel scripts to call the "splash.sh" script.
    2. The "splash" utility. The splash utility is a multifunction tool
       that allows you to: 
          + attach pictures to an initrd.
          + attach a jpg picture including the bootsplash config header
            to an initrd with:
            splash -s -f \
            /etc/bootsplash/themes/current/config/bootsplash-1024x768.cfg
            \ >> /boot/initrd
            You can add several pictures like this, if you intend to boot
            your machine with several resolutions.
          + use a new picture on the fly
          + show a new bootsplash graphics on the fly on the first
            console by using
            splash -s -u 0 \
            /etc/bootsplash/themes/current/config/bootsplash-1024x768.cfg
            any other console can be used by specifying -u [console
            number] where the console number starts at 0 (i.e. by default
            you have 0-5)
          + trigger events during bootup
            we suggest that you add a function to your init scripts that
            is called every time an init script is started. This can
            either be done in the runlevel scripts themselves or by the
            script/program scheduling it (i.e. /etc/init.d/rc)

   function rc_splash()
   {
   test "$SPLASH" != "no" && test "$_rc_splash" -eq 1 && /sbin/splash "$1"
   progress=$(( $progress + 1 ))
   }
   when adding the rc_splash call to your runlevel script scheduler, do
   it
   about like this:
   for i in $runrc/S${rex}*; do
   [..]
   # send information to bootsplash handler.
   rc_splash "$i start"
   [..]
   done
            the splash program will look for the file
            /etc/bootsplash/themes/current/config/animations.cfg which
            looks like the following:

   [ .. ]
   fsck start:bootanim start fsck.mng
   fsck stop:bootanim stop
   [ .. ]
            so when %i is "fsck" and the runlevel script is executed
            during system start, the bootanim start fsck.mng
            Basically, it's a list of bootup hooks that are associated
            with a command to be executed when a certain service is
            started/stopped during boot/shutdown.
            The syntax is this:
            [service] [start|stop]:[command-to-execute]
            "Service" is almost always the name of an executed init
            script. There are some additional hooks for finetuning. See
            the SuSE 8.1 theme's config file "animations.cfg"
    3. The splash scripts
          + The splash.sh wrapper script, which:
            - paints a truetype rendered text during bootup and shutdown
            at predefined coordinates
            - moves a progress bar, if there is one, using the proc
            interface.
            - reads the config file
            /etc/bootsplash/themes/current/config/bootsplash-[X]x[Y].cfg
          + The bootanim wrapper script.
            This script starts/stops animations played with fbmngplay. It
            looks for these animations in
            /etc/bootsplash/themes/current/animations/ per default. It
            will likely be called from the file animations.cfg. When you
            want to play an animation when apache is started, you would
            write: apache start:bootanim start animation.mng To fade out
            an animation, run 'bootanim stop'. Bootanim can also play
            multiple animations in a row, each synchronized to a certain
            point in bootup. This can be used to keep the last picture of
            an animation visible after playing the animation. To achieve
            this, use 'bootanim start' with option -m and multiple mng
            files. To move on to the next animation, use 'bootanim next'
            later on. Before playing the next animation (esp. at the same
            position as before), you need to find a hook that can
            properly stop the boot animation (esp. when playing looped
            animations). It's also advised to have an entry in your
            config file that stops running animations as soon as the
            final system runlevel is reached: master:bootanim stop
    4. Progress bar handling in the init scripts.
       To have a progress bar during bootup you need the following
          + A theme that contains a progress bar. Look in the Theme
            section
            for information on how to add a progress bar and for example
            themes.
          + The above function rc_splash (or comparable functionality)
          + The splash.sh script (called from rc_splash as a wrapper to
            the splash utility)
            Additionally you need to make your runlevel script scheduler
            (i.e. /etc/init.d/rc) aware of the number of scripts to be
            executed in the current runlevel:

   #
   # initialize boosplash progressbar variables
   #
   runrc=/etc/init.d/rc${RUNLEVEL}.d
   prerc=/etc/init.d/rc${PREVLEVEL}.d
   SSC=($runrc/S*)
   case "$SSC" in
   *\*) sscripts=0 ;;
   *) sscripts=${#SSC[*]}
   esac
   export sscripts
   if test "$PREVLEVEL" != "N" ; then
   KSC=($prerc/K*)
   case "$KSC" in
   *\*) kscripts=0 ;;
   *) kscripts=${#KSC[*]}
   esac
   export kscripts
   fi
   if [ "$PREVLEVEL" == "N" -a "$RUNLEVEL" == "5" ]; then
   export progress=16
   sscripts=$(( $sscripts+15 ))
   else
   export progress=0
   fi
            To switch the bootsplash off when the final runlevel is
            reached you can add the following to the runlevel script
            scheduler at the according place:
            rc_splash "master"
            This will cause most themes to switch off the bootsplash
            screen.

    5. What distributions support this per default?
       Currently only SuSE Linux (8.2+) supports all features of the
       bootsplash v3. Please note that SuSE Linux 8.2 holds the themes in
       /usr/share/splash/themes. It keeps a temporary copy of the
       currently used config files in /etc/bootsplash to be used when
       /usr is not available (i.e. on a different partition).