[Splashy-devel] Splashy moving forward

[Otavio Salvador]

Olivier Blin <blino at mandriva.com> writes:

> Right, we consider switching to splashy for the next Mandriva
> release.

Cool. That's a great news.

> I have added a few patches, available at
> http://svn.mandriva.com/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/packages/cooker/splashy/current/SOURCES/
> - fix segfault when DirectFB initialization fails:
>   splashy-0.3.3-checkvideo.patch
> - fix build with Werror by workarounding a freopen() warning:
>   splashy-0.3.4-warnings.patch
> - fix static linking with fbdev (quite distro specific):
>   splashy-0.3.3-dfblink.patch

I'll take a look on them ASAP and commit them when possible
too. Thanks by keeping us informated about them.

> The specfile is available here, if anyone is interested:
> http://svn.mandriva.com/cgi-bin/viewvc.cgi/packages/cooker/splashy/current/SPECS/

Ok.

> Though, we still have a few concerns.
>
> First, the binary size is quite huge (splashy is about 2M in our full
> static build), which will make our initramfs consequently bigger, and
> may lead to slower boot times.

You can disable the libraries you don't need. You can even disable
formats to make the binary smaller if need.

> Then, there may be an interval when non-graphical kernel messages are
> displayed, between the bootloader screen and splashy start. How do
> other distributions manage to get a fully graphical boot?

You do it on initramfs scripts. You start it as early as possible and
then use the init script to communicate with it to make the progress
bar to grow or reduce.

> And finally, we used to have background images in TTYs with
> bootsplash, and we'd like to keep them. According to Luis, this can be
> achieved in userspace with a DirectFB-aware daemon that does not steal
> focus on TTY. Is there any prototype of such an application?

Yes, this can be done but we hadn't yet started to cook it. If you do
something this way please keep us informated about your progress :-)

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