Plymouth To Replace USplash In Ubuntu?

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Plymouth To Replace USplash In Ubuntu?

We've talked about Plymouth now a number of times at Phoronix, which is Red Hat's RHGB replacement starting with Fedora 10 and uses newer Linux technologies like kernel mode-setting to drive this graphical boot screen. As we shared in our detailed analysis of Plymouth it also offers a number of plug-ins and APIs for creating some fairly unique visuals...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=Njg4Mg

[[Knuckles]]

I think it's a great idea but I wonder when (if ever) will we start seeing suport for kernel mode-setting in drivers for older hardware.

It would suck if I can't have KMS without upgrading most of my systems; and if they remove the current bootsplash systems, it's basically back to text booting, which - again - kinda sucks.

[danjeel]

;53419']I think it's a great idea but I wonder when (if ever) will we start seeing suport for kernel mode-setting in drivers for older hardware.

It would suck if I can't have KMS without upgrading most of my systems; and if they remove the current bootsplash systems, it's basically back to text booting, which - again - kinda sucks.


Is it impossible to have booth?, I bootet Fedora 10 on my old computer who uses a Nvidia 6200 card and i didn´t get a "text-boot", but it wasn´t very graphical neither. But still there was a progressbar..

[sundown]

Looks like the guys at Fedora are doing the important stuff, while Ubuntu makes shits like Wubi.

[[Knuckles]]

Is it impossible to have booth?, I bootet Fedora 10 on my old computer who uses a Nvidia 6200 card and i didn´t get a "text-boot", but it wasn´t very graphical neither. But still there was a progressbar..

I think the way to go is KMS for everyone. But yeah fedora has a simple text-mode progress bar for those of us without KMS, but for people without KMS this is a regression: they had a nice boot, and now they don't.

[Zhick]

Well, I guess a vesa-kms-driver wouldn't be too hard to do and would support pretty much all old graphic-cards, but of course you'd then have to use vesa in X as well.

[szczerb]

Is it impossible to have booth?, I bootet Fedora 10 on my old computer who uses a Nvidia 6200 card and i didn´t get a "text-boot", but it wasn´t very graphical neither. But still there was a progressbar..

GeForce 6200 is not old ;] The term old here applies to stuff like GeForce 2 which people are still using.

[BlackStar]

Looks like the guys at Fedora are doing the important stuff, while Ubuntu makes shits like Wubi.

Wubi is great when you wish to use linux but cannot format / repartition the drive (as is the case with my university-provided laptop).

Frankly, Wubi is much more important than fancy startup graphics.

[sundown]

Wubi is great when you wish to use linux but cannot format / repartition the drive (as is the case with my university-provided laptop).

Frankly, Wubi is much more important than fancy startup graphics.

Frankly, how is Wubi more important to people like me who run only Linux?

What you describe as "fancy startup graphics" is going to be a standard come 2.6.29.

[myxal]

Wubi is great when you wish to use linux but cannot format / repartition the drive (as is the case with my university-provided laptop).

Frankly, Wubi is much more important than fancy startup graphics.

Granted, I find the uproar over text-mode boot quite silly. Who even boots these days? (suspend-to-ram FTW!) Even when you do boot, what difference does is make to you if the computer flashes the ubuntu logo for 50 seconds? If anyone should be upset it's Canonical over not displaying its brand whenever possible.

As for Wubi are you saying that linux installed into a file on an ntfs filesystem actually works? Especially on a laptop, does it cope with suspend/hibernate?

As for the inclusion of Plymouth - don't care either way, just use whatever is more stable/working.

[greg]

Great, a fancy boot splash to cover up terribly slow boot is extremely important. Rrrrrright.

[ethana2]

Don't think that boot-up time isn't going to get blazing fast. Intel has made too much news with their awesome 4 second Fedora boot time to let that happen.

If it gets in by 9.04, I'll be elated.

[greg]

Here's a spoiler for you: it will never get that fast for general-purpose Desktop machines. The 5 seconds were only achieved with a non-generic kernel which statically included all hardware drivers, a custom, stripped down init sequence and a stripped-down X server and desktop environment. Booting will probably get a little bit faster in the future, but not by that much.

[Ze..]

Frankly, how is Wubi more important to people like me who run only Linux?
It's not but linux isn't about what sundown wants.

In short I don't get the whole people bitching about different groups working on different things. The linux philosophy has always been if you want something then contribute code to it.

[sundown]

The linux philosophy has always been if you want something then contribute code to it.

And as far as I know Ubunutu is the most famous distro that doesn't contribute anything when it comes to the Linux kernel (or in general) or am I mistaken?

[ethana2]

And as far as I know Ubunutu is the most famous distro that doesn't contribute anything when it comes to the Linux kernel (or in general) or am I mistaken?

Our users submit more feedback than... yeah, you're mistaken.

[sundown]

Is 'feedback' 'code' too?

[ethana2]

Is 'feedback' 'code' too?

Who cares?

[sundown]

I don't know, ask Ze..

[BlackStar]

And as far as I know Ubunutu is the most famous distro that doesn't contribute anything when it comes to the Linux kernel (or in general) or am I mistaken?
It's true.

But it's also true that this observation misses the point. Canonical simply doesn't have the resources to work on the kernel like RedHat or Novell do. However, it has managed to do something that may be even more important in the long run: it has made the general public aware of something called Ubuntu, which is free and competes with the likes of Windows. It's other main contribution is Launchpad, which serves for triaging and coordinating bug reports throughout the linux ecosystem.

Maybe you don't care for any of these, because perhaps you don't use or don't like Ubuntu, but they are necessary if Linux is ever to become useful to the general public.

[greg]

Ubuntu doesn't have to contribute to the kernel, they focus on developing and improving other parts of the Linux operating system, and they're free to do so.

Please don't listen to ignorant kernel developers like Greg K-H.

[szczerb]

But they made HW acceleration working for intel users with custom patches to Xorg, intel driver and probably mesa (I can't really remember right now) and also didn't share a thing with the upstream.

How would you call that?

[greg]

I didn't know about that. Where can I read about this case?

[szczerb]

I'm not really sure. I ran into it while trying to setup intel in my gentoo. Just like a lot of other users, I tried a lot of different versions of everything and couldn't achieve what was working fine in Ubuntu. In the end I decided to just wait until the official intel driver matures enough and now it's pretty usable (intel-2.5.1 with xorg-server-1.5.2 and mesa-7.2). Ubuntu used a lot older stuff but patched with "something".

I used a lot of google and went through forums of pretty much every distro this way. No one knew how it worked.

[curaga]

Yeah, they do that; I have one proof. They patch their i810 driver, or patched when it was still included as an alternative, with new pci id's to enable it to support 945 and 965. It was just a small change, but when people for who intel didn't work tried to use i810, and it didn't work like in ubuntu..

[BlackStar]

Of course they patch packages with custom modifications and fixes. All distros do that.

This doesn't mean they don't contribute these patches upstream. Just take a look at Launchpad: the words "Bug reported upstream [link]" are very common.

[szczerb]

But all (almost) distros send those patches.

The fact that the fact of existence of a bug is send upstream doesn't mean that a patch is. But I sure do hope that they stopped acting like assholes and started to send patches upstream.

[BlackStar]

Gosh, who is spreading this non-sense?

So you claim that they identify a bug, take the time to fix it, report it and then don't send the patch? I hope you realize how ridiculous this sounds.

Yes, there have been issues with Debian in the past - but those were about the quality of the patches Ubuntu sent, not about failing to send the fixes! Yes, there are people who believe Ubuntu should be more involved in kernel development - even though Canonical lacks the manpower and technical expertise to help.

But please, don't claim they don't cooperate with upstream. That's the whole freaking point of Launchpad!

[szczerb]

If this has either changed or never was true then I really, truly am sorry (and apologise) for spreading this information.

That said, when I was trying to make xorg work 3 months ago and read a lot of threads, blog entries, list archives and such stuff, I found this information quite a few times (and the authors where not proved wrong/accused of stating not true/etc. by any one) I simply took it as a fact. Also I'm sure that if those patches would make it's way upstream, they would in the Xorg's GIT and patched versions would be available at least in the Gentoo x11 overlay. The fact was that no one there knew how to make it work.

[airlied]

But please, don't claim they don't cooperate with upstream. That's the whole freaking point of Launchpad!


hahaha... that was the funniest thing I read all morning. You do really believe everything that comes out of the spaceman's mouth? :)

LP is a joke amongst upstreams, its still not open source. The launchpad works with upstream means the upstream needs to use launchpad, which no sane upstream does.

[BlackStar]

LP is a joke amongst upstreams, its still not open source.
True, but "Launchpad to be open source in 12 months" (http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ars/2008/07/23/mark-shuttleworth-launchpad-to-be-open-source-in-12-months).

Edit: But I agree that it's pretty dumb that they haven't open-sourced it already.

The launchpad works with upstream means the upstream needs to use launchpad, which no sane upstream does.
No, it means triaging the bugs reported by the single largest linux community and making sure they reach the correct people upstream.

Not everyone has the technical knowhow to: a) deduce why his system locks up upon sleep, b) find out who the hell is responsible for this component (kernel? drm? X?). Launchpad helps with that - I simply cannot see why this, as a concept, is disagreeable to upstream developers.

Since you are an upstream dev and your opinion carries weight, what is it that annoys you on Launchpad?

Edit 2: Also, what would you propose as an alternative?