Strog
March 30th, 2006, 14:30
FreeBSD has had splash screens since the 3.x days but you don't often see them used so I thought I'd post this to pretty up your box. You may be asking yourself why I post pretty desktops, login managers and splash screens when I don't use any of that on my main desktop. The answer is that I do use them on laptops and get ohhhs and ahhhs at work and the ocassional local LUG meeting :biggrin:

First thing we need is a picture to use as a splash screen. It can be PCX or BMP format and must be 256 colors to display and no larger than 1024x768. It's hard to beat the classics (http://www.baldwin.cx/splash/#screens) but you can use whatever you like as long as the format is right. You have to use splash_bmp_load even if you are using a PCX file. You are limited to 320x200 resolution if you don't load the VESA module.

Add the following to your /boot/loader.conf

splash_bmp_load="YES"
splash_pcx_load="YES"
vesa_load="YES"
bitmap_load="YES"
bitmap_name="/boot/splash.bmp"


Copy your splash.bmp to /boot and reboot. Once the bootloader kicks off, you should have your image in all its fullscreen glory. :cool: You can hit a key to see the text that's behind it so it won't get in the way if you need to see the boot process. If you don't have a splash screen then the most common problem is the color depth and/or the size of the pic. Enjoy.

bmw
March 31st, 2006, 22:11
These ones would be fun too ...

http://www.theoldcomputer.com/Libarary's/Boot%20Screens/BootScreens_summary.htm

cipixul
November 20th, 2008, 06:04
hahahaha booting freebsd with windows 95 boot logo lol... worth a laugh but I'ld get angry and sick after a while... I thought only linux would be able to use boot logos, but I'm glad bsd can too... I wonder why freebsd is so unknown?!