Re: Any chance of Debian adding YaST

[Seneca <seneca-cunningham@rogers.com>]

On Thu, Jul 29, 2004 at 01:54:21AM -0700, Alvin Oga wrote:
> On Thu, 29 Jul 2004, John Summerfield wrote:
> > IBM has a patch for Netvistas (diskless workstations). Most of the patch 
> > involves a Netvista graphic and, I think, a progress meter.
> 
> for regular distro boots...
> 
> suse has a bootup progress meter, forgot if fedora has or not
> ( f2 to toggle between meter and text messages not so fast flying by )
> 
> other distro does have bootup progress meter too

Even this debian running laptop does.  Quick instructions for sid that
work for my i386-based laptop (hopefully I didn't leave out a step):

0) Get kernel sources and compilation-related packages.
1) Patch a kernel with the bootsplash patch (I use 2.6.7-ck5, which
   includes a recent version and some other nice patches), and enable
   framebuffer console, RAM disk, initrd, a framebuffer driver (possibly
   only VESA, depends upon the bootsplash patch), bootup splash screen,
   and disable boot logo and "Use register arguments".
2) Compile and install kernel and add to bootloader config files.
3) Add:

     # bootsplash stuff
     deb http://www.bootsplash.de/files/debian unstable main
     deb-src http://www.bootsplash.de/files/debian unstable main

   to your sources.list.  Update then apt-get install bootsplash,
   sysv-rc-bootsplash, and some bootsplash-themes.  If not using lilo,
   select grub on the menu, even if you don't use grub, since if you
   select lilo, it will add to your /etc/lilo.conf and rerun lilo.
4) If using grub, add "vga=0x317 splash=silent" (substituting for the
   correct screen size, 0x317 is 1024x768) to the kernel line for your
   bootsplash kernel, and if you normally don't use initrd, add the
   line "initrd /boot/initrd.splash".
5) Get rescue disk.
6) Reboot.

A quick note:  some of the more recent bootsplash patches allow for
framebuffers other than vesafb to be selected, but it doesn't mean that
it will work.  If you try with a different framebuffer and your display
is messed up, retry with a compile using vesafb instead, if bootsplash
is important enough.

Documentation about bootsplash is available at <http://bootsplash.org>

-- 
Seneca
seneca-cunningham@rogers.com