[syslinux] not sure how to get rid of white screen during boot

Douglas McClendon dmc.syslinux at cloudsession.com
Sat Feb 19 22:24:35 PST 2011


On 02/19/2011 11:51 PM, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> On 02/19/2011 09:37 PM, Douglas McClendon wrote:
>>>
>>> With the most recent kernels, with "quiet vga=current" the graphic
>>> splash can be retained during the execution of the kernel; in fact if
>>> the resolution is the same some video drivers can actually leave the
>>> image intact during the kernel transition.
>>
>> Alternately if I want to go that route, I'd still very much like for the
>> menu text to disappear as soon as the options/menu are no longer
>> selectable/manipulable by the user.  Having it stay up on the screen for
>> 4 seconds I find aesthetically sub-optimal.  Optimal IMHO would also be
>> having the text fade out in 0.25s, but I don't know how doable that is
>> with the particular console/text system presently in use at the time.
>>
>
> The menu text does disappear.

I'm using syslinux-3.86-1.1.el6.i686 from a scientific/rhe/linux 6.0 
system.  vesamenu.c32 with a background image on an early acer aspire 
one netbook (intel video I think).  What I see subsequently after I hit 
enter on my default linux vga=current presumably kms setup, is the same 
screen with menu text and splash held for 4-5 seconds, before a flash of 
all black that looks to also have lcd backlight off, and then a flash to 
all black with backlight on, then I'm pretty sure for temporary reasons, 
the text "Fontconfig: failed to load default config", then a switch to a 
perhaps darker shade of black as plymouth renders its first all black 
screen of my plymouth-theme.

So its those 4 seconds of looking at that menu after it has become 'done 
with' that bother me aesthetically.

What I'd like to see for my own ideal config, is fades for everything. 
First, 0.25s fading in syslinux splash, then quartersec 
fadeout(to-black) for both menu text and syslinux splash.  Then maybe 
linux kms does a lcd backlight flash, then if unavoidable a mostly all 
black text mode with no text (I can shut up my fontconfig config problem 
and then I think I'm good enough for now), then plymouth with a theme 
that starts all black, and has entirely smooth fades for its 
init/handofftogdm.

>
> Making the text fade would be doable, but I don't think I will
> personally have time to implement it.

If I find the time (maybe), I'll bring up any questions I run into.  The 
main presumption is the facility of an easy value changable 
variable/memlocation which can change the rendered text color with 
sufficient granularity to produce some 5frame or more fade?

-dmc




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