Arch Linux

djzin

Member

Registered: 2020-04-11

Posts: 4

"Starting version..." message seems out of place

I'm sure we're all familiar with this, it's the first line printed in the initrd and all that shows up with `quiet` on the kernel command line.
It just feels a little out of place to me. It comes from systemd-udev (https://github.com/systemd/systemd/blob … vd.c#L1807). It's not a "welcome to arch" message, it just happens to have -arch in the version string for the systemd build.
I found that adding

rd.udev.log_priority=warning

to the kernel command line will remove it (see man 8 systemd-udevd and note that it is printed as log_info).
N.B. rd.udev.log_priority=warn does NOT work; "warn" as a log level is depreciated anyway.

I say silencing this output and adding an optional "motd" initcpio hook would be a good default.

WorMzy

Administrator

From: Scotland

Registered: 2010-06-16

Posts: 12,577

Website

Re: "Starting version..." message seems out of place

I think you're missing the point of Arch. If you want to hide that message and add an MOTD instead, go ahead, but if upstream show this message by default, then Arch will show it too.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Linux

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Slithery

Administrator

From: Norfolk, UK

Registered: 2013-12-01

Posts: 5,776

Re: "Starting version..." message seems out of place

This is already covered in the wiki...
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Silent_boot

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No, it didn't "fix" anything. It just shifted the brokeness one space to the right. - jasonwryan
Closing -- for deletion; Banning -- for muppetry. - jasonwryan

aur - dotfiles

djzin

Member

Registered: 2020-04-11

Posts: 4

Re: "Starting version..." message seems out of place

If you want to hide that message and add an MOTD instead, go ahead

This is what I've done

if upstream show this message by default, then Arch will show it too.

Hm yes you have a good point here, this is part of the Arch philosophy. Changing the default log level definitely violates that.

Maybe another way to quiet the output to the console (e.g. when quiet is set, redirect the output to /dev/null in the udev hook) could work?
After all, the init scripts already do this for cryptsetup (see the encrypt hook).

djzin

Member

Registered: 2020-04-11

Posts: 4

Re: "Starting version..." message seems out of place

This is already covered in the wiki...

Thanks, I actually hadn't seen this. I've actually just edited the init_functions script in initcpio instead of using systemd-fsck to squelch fsck warnings (when quiet is set). I'll try and think of an upgrade-safe way to do it and then add it to the wiki.

djzin

Member

Registered: 2020-04-11

Posts: 4

Re: "Starting version..." message seems out of place

I'll try and think of an upgrade-safe way to do it and then add it to the wiki.

I added this section to the slient boot page on the wiki: https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Si … tcpio_hook