Boot Menu Logos

jmos said:
…and how do I get the cool, old ASCII art back?
Click to expand...
Grab a screen shot of the ASCII art (e.g. from this forum thread) and save it in PNG format in the /boot/images directory.
Then make a copy of logo-orb.4th (if using 4TH) or lua/gfx-orb.lua (if using LUA), relacing the word “orb” in the file name with “asciiart”. Edit that copy to replace the file name freebsd-logo-rev.png with the name of your own PNG file (line 43 in the 4TH file or line 51 in the LUA file). Put the line loader_logo="asciiart" in your loader.conf.
(All file names mentioned above are relative to the /boot directory, of course.)
 
Already tried these lines in my /boot/loader.conf:
Code: 
hw.vga.textmode="1"
Click to expand...
That’s a kernel tunable (like all variables beginning with hw). It is used by the kernel, not by the loader.
 
Code: 
screen.textmode="1"
Click to expand...
That is only relevant in legacy BIOS mode (CSM). It does not apply when booting via EFI.
 
Code: 
bitmap_load="NO"
Click to expand...
That setting refers to the splash screen. It has nothing to do with the loader menu screen.
 
Please refer to the loader.conf(5) manual page and the comments in the /boot/defaults/loader.conf file for details.
 
olli@ said:
Grab a screen shot of the ASCII art (e.g. from this forum thread) and save it in PNG format in the /boot/images directory.
[…]
Please refer to the loader.conf(5) manual page and the comments in the /boot/defaults/loader.conf file for details.
Click to expand...
I've read man 5 loader.conf before asking (also found the default-file) - but I didn't get wiser. That's why I'm asking ;)

I want to have ASCII, not screenshots that looks like ASCII. And comparing f.e. /boot/lua/gfx-orbbw.lua and /boot/lua/gfx-orb.lua tells me it is easy to switch to a selfmade "/boot/lua/gfx-file" to just get back the old "orb ASCII" itself - without the long way around of a screenshot.

But that's not what I wanted. The old ASCII exists. And it works. Without using any graphics. My question is: How do I get it?
Geezer said:
jmos No, no, no. How do I get the new flashy logos?
Click to expand...
I would tell you if I knew it. My knowledge ends here: Such things depend on the capabilities of the terminal itself (also: BIOS settings) as well as the software determine it. In your case I would cut it down to the common thing: no color, no graphics. But that may not help on the bold chars…
 
jmos said:
I want to have ASCII, not screenshots that looks like ASCII.
Click to expand...
But why? You wouldn’t see much of a difference. Maybe no difference at all.
 
Apart from that, I don’t quite understand why people are wasting hours of their time to find out how to change a logo that appears for 10 seconds during boot when you usually don’t look at the screen anyway because you’re fetching a cup of coffee or something.

I don’t watch my machine booting in the morning. In fact, I only switch the screen on when the login prompt is already there.
 
olli@ said:
But why? […]
Click to expand...
Many years ago Windows NT 4 was great. It did all I needed, and got all I wanted. Nevertheless, in 1998 I installed Linux. Linux was much more better, I loved it. It did all I needed, and got all I wanted. But it must been 2001 when two guys on the "Linuxtag" (a fair in germany) on a FreeBSD fair booth gave me a FreeBSD 4.3 CD-ROM. They praised cool things FreeBSD is offering, but honestly: Nothing they told me was something I personally had a single benefit of. But I installed it.

The Why is to grow, play (!) and learn. I think these are logical and rational reasons.
 
jmos said:
Many years ago Windows NT 4 was great. It did all I needed, and got all I wanted. Nevertheless, in 1998 I installed Linux. Linux was much more better, I loved it. It did all I needed, and got all I wanted. But it must been 2001 when two guys on the "Linuxtag" (a fair in germany) on a FreeBSD fair booth gave me a FreeBSD 4.3 CD-ROM. They praised cool things FreeBSD is offering, but honestly: Nothing they told me was something I personally had a single benefit of. But I installed it.

The Why is to grow, play (!) and learn. I think these are logical and rational reasons.
Click to expand...
I agree completely. But isn’t it better to progress instead of go backwards?
 
I have just rebooted a remote server over a KVM, and got this:

Screenshot from 2021-08-01 13-58-52.png


Smooth graphicy Freebsd logo, smooth rounded box around menu, and the old style ascii-art orb on the side.

Neither fully one nor the other. Why?
 
Have not tried it in VB.

Have tried it on 1 laptop, 1 new desktop, 1 old desktop, 1 machine in remote data centre. Cannot try it on any other machines without seriously upsetting clients.
 
I installed as a VB guest before putting on my main machine. The iso image (disc1) worked fine with EFI mode, didn't need to convert it to anything. You have to enable EFI in VB settings.

Enabling EFI mode changed from the ascii art to the other one, so it must be related in some way
 
mrbeastie0x19 said:
?… The iso image (disc1) worked fine …
Click to expand...

Yep.

(I wondered whether something specific to the .img causes a fallback to ASCII instead of an image of the org.)

Enabling EFI mode changed from the ascii art to the other one, so it must be related in some way
Click to expand...

Certainly, the ASCII art orb is used in the absence of EFI.

Where EFI is enabled but /boot/images/freebsd-logo-rev.png is not used: I wonder whether the framebuffer console is a factor.

1632623477621.png
 
Geezer said:
… Smooth graphicy Freebsd logo, smooth rounded box around menu, and the old style ascii-art orb on the side. …
Click to expand...

From <{link removed}>:

… I think you would need to run the boot loader at a different resolution. If you "need" the new graphical orb, try efi-max-resolution (or vbe-max-resolution) at 1024x768 or 4k (probably others work as well, those two work for me). check the manual for loader.conf
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
grahamperrin said:
… I think you would need to run the boot loader at a different resolution. If you "need" the new graphical orb, try efi-max-resolution (or vbe-max-resolution) at 1024x768 or 4k (probably others work as well, those two work for me). check the manual for loader.conf
Click to expand...

Thank you grahamperrin , have tried that and no difference.
 
Well I can tell you that if you're running in an older BIOS mode that if you use the following in your loader.conf, it should work. Interestingly, I could never get mine working until I got the tip that SirDice mentioned here of using screen.textmode="0" Once I added that to the items shown below (see <Screen Related>), it fired right up.

Code: 
cpu_microcode_load="YES"
cpu_microcode_name="/boot/firmware/intel-ucode.bin"

<Screen Related>
kern.vty=vt
splash_bmp_load="YES"
vbe-max-resolution 1080p  
screen.textmode="0"

Give this a try, you may be pleasantly surprised.

StressTest
 
olli@ said:
… to replace the file name freebsd-logo-rev.png with the …
Click to expand...
finally managed to get chuck into the loader menu by replacing the file with the exact same image format and file permissions:

Code: 
$ file /boot/images/freebsd-logo-rev*.png
/boot/images/freebsd-logo-rev.orig.png: PNG image data, 240 x 200, 8-bit/color RGBA, non-interlaced
/boot/images/freebsd-logo-rev.png:      PNG image data, 240 x 200, 8-bit/color RGBA, non-interlaced
$ ls -l /boot/images/freebsd-logo-rev*.png
-r--r--r--  1 root wheel 43898 13 Aug.  2023 /boot/images/freebsd-logo-rev.orig.png
-r--r--r--  1 mro  wheel 22267 22 Aug. 10:59 /boot/images/freebsd-logo-rev.png
 

Attachments

  • b.jpg
    b.jpg
    73.7 KB · Views: 43
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top