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#1 2005-11-30 15:19:36

pholie
Member
Registered: 2005-06-04
Posts: 234

Usplash

Have you already seen the ubuntu splash? It is completely in user-space in contrary to gensplash. What's more it displays what the system is currently doing, such as Checking disks....

Some screeshots here.

the ubuntu pkg with link to sources: http://packages.ubuntu.com/breezy/misc/usplash

Would it be hard to port it to archlinux? Any volunteers?  tongue

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#2 2005-11-30 16:32:45

phrakture
Arch Overlord
From: behind you
Registered: 2003-10-29
Posts: 7,879
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Re: Usplash

You know, I've been waiting for something like this - I always figured it was possible to do without mucking about the kernel.

I'll look into it.

PS for those hacker types out there:
http://www.paul.sladen.org/projects/usplash/download/
(that was hard to find)

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#3 2005-11-30 17:11:09

Dusty
Schwag Merchant
From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2004-01-18
Posts: 5,986
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#4 2005-11-30 19:45:46

phrakture
Arch Overlord
From: behind you
Registered: 2003-10-29
Posts: 7,879
Website

Re: Usplash

Dusty wrote:

Awesome. Get on it phrakture!

Been on it - the ubuntu usplash stuff "requires" initramfs-tools.  It's funny to note that Debian supports initramfs already, while we're stuck in the days of initrd  :shock:

Anyway, this is very workable, as it simply takes advantage of early-userspace (initrd/initramfs/yaird) - the only thing is, the current arch implementation does not allow for user-based hooks (see the debian initramfs-tools package, they allow you to configure early-userspace hooks like "lvm" or "acpid" or anything else you need at boot).

So, usplash seems to build just fine, but I am not at home, nor do I have a working initrd... but all you'll need is the following in your initrd:

modules =>  fbcon, vga16fb -OR- vesafb
tools=> /sbin/usplash /sbin/usplash_write
libs => /usr/lib/usplash/usplash-artwork.so

and the following snippet in your linuxrc (requires manual editing of mkinitrd):

mknod /dev/fb0 c 29 0
for i in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8; do
   mknod /dev/tty$i c 4 $i
done
/sbin/usplash -c &

Of course, this probably won't work as planned, but I'll see later on tonight

Feel free to dance around with this:

# Contributor: phrakture < aaron m griffin (*) gmail-com>
pkgname=usplash
pkgver=0.1.22
pkgrel=1
pkgdesc="Ubuntu Splash / Userspace Splash / Micro Splash"
url="https://wiki.ubuntu.com/USplash"
depends=('libpng' 'gd')
source=(http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/main/u/usplash/${pkgname}_0.1-22.tar.gz)

build()
{
    cd $startdir/src/$pkgname-0.1/
    sed -i "s|dpkg-architecture -qDEB_BUILD_GNU_CPU|uname -m|" Makefile
    sed -i "s|i386 i486|i386 i486 i686|" Makefile
    make || return 1
    mkdir -p $startdir/pkg/usr/lib/usplash
    mkdir -p $startdir/pkg/sbin
    make DESTDIR=$startdir/pkg install
}

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#5 2005-11-30 22:19:38

phrakture
Arch Overlord
From: behind you
Registered: 2003-10-29
Posts: 7,879
Website

Re: Usplash

I'm thinking about converting initramfs-tools to work with arch, and if they do, usplash will be easy as pie - also, the initramfs can replace initrd (they do the same job)

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#6 2005-12-01 10:42:47

dtw
Forum Fellow
From: UK
Registered: 2004-08-03
Posts: 4,439
Website

Re: Usplash

Well, if we switch to initramfs then that will make gensplash happier anyway I think as it uses initramfs too big_smile

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#7 2005-12-01 13:12:08

nightfrost
Member
From: Sweden
Registered: 2005-04-16
Posts: 647

Re: Usplash

This is pretty good news. I hope it's gonna work out. I'd be happy to do some testing in due time as well smile

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#8 2005-12-01 16:42:38

phrakture
Arch Overlord
From: behind you
Registered: 2003-10-29
Posts: 7,879
Website

Re: Usplash

dibblethewrecker wrote:

Well, if we switch to initramfs then that will make gensplash happier anyway I think as it uses initramfs too big_smile

The initramfs-tools package is really nice - but has alot of debian specific stuff (like calling dpkg-architecture instead of "uname -m" for some stupid reason)...

Basically the initramfs-tools are similar to tpowa's mkinitrd script, but have alot more options and are alot more flexible.

And for the record, initramfs will work as a drop-in replacement for the current initrd, no changes needed at all, which is rad.

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#9 2005-12-01 17:31:03

Dusty
Schwag Merchant
From: Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada
Registered: 2004-01-18
Posts: 5,986
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Re: Usplash

out of curiosity, how is initramfs "different from" or "better than" initrd?

Dusty

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#10 2005-12-01 17:43:00

phrakture
Arch Overlord
From: behind you
Registered: 2003-10-29
Posts: 7,879
Website

Re: Usplash

Dusty wrote:

out of curiosity, how is initramfs "different from" or "better than" initrd?

I think most of the major things are nitty-gritty technical details.

http://www.linux-sh.org/shwiki/Using_Early_User_Space
The first line there is the important one:

Early user space (or "INITRAMFS" for inital RAM filesystem) is a replacement for initial ram disk (initrd) in the 2.6 kernel series

initramfs superceeds initrd, maybe in a similar way to alsa/oss (except for the whole free/non-free thing) - it's not that the old one doesn't work, it's just that the new one is more robust.

klibc (a kernel level c library - nicely shrunk down) was made for initramfs, as well as some of the minor apps based on klibc, like kinit.

It's also a simple cpio image, which doesn't require and funky loop-back mounting or anything crazy - it's basically as simple as "throw this stuff in a dir and .cpio.gz it" (for the record, yaird - yet another initial ram disk - supports .tar.gz archives as images)

Side Note: the initramfs-tools have a cool way of building the image - every lib/app/module it requires it symlinks into the dir, and builds the cpio image with "cpio --dereference", which I found very cool.

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#11 2006-12-18 00:00:26

dtw
Forum Fellow
From: UK
Registered: 2004-08-03
Posts: 4,439
Website

Re: Usplash

Yeah, what happened?

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