Splashy

Splashy is a userspace implementation of a splash screen for Linux systems. It provides a graphical environment during system boot using the Linux framebuffer layer via directfb.

Installation

Before you can use Splashy, you should enable Kernel Mode Setting. Please refer to the specific instructions for ATI cards, Intel cards or Nvidia cards. All of these require you to rebuild your kernel image. You will also have to do that later on in this article, so you may wish to skip that step for now.

If you do not have KMS you will need to use framebuffer instead. Uvesafb is recommended. Of all the three the regular framebuffer is the only one that does not support custom resolutions (including wide screen splashes).

Grab Template:Package AUR from the AUR. Instructions on installing packages from the AUR are available here.

You may also check out this topic on the Arch Linux forum for a repository you can add with working splashy packages.

Configuration

/etc/rc.conf

Add this in Template:Filename:

SPLASH="splashy"

Including Splashy in initramfs

Add Splashy to the HOOKS array in mkinitcpio.conf. It must be added after base, udev and autodetect for it to work:

# nano /etc/mkinitcpio.conf

HOOKS="base udev autodetect splashy ..."

For early KMS start add the module radeon (for radeon cards), i915 (for intel cards) or nouveau (for nvidia cards) to the MODULES line in Template:Filename:

# nano /etc/mkinitcpio.conf

MODULES="i915"

MODULES="radeon"

MODULES="nouveau"

Rebuild your kernel image (refer to the mkinitcpio article for more info):

# mkinitcpio -p [name of your kernel preset]

The kernel command line

You now need to set quiet splash as you kernel command line parametres in your bootloader. The following is an example for Grub2 and Template:Filename (the legacy Grub and Lilo follow the same pattern):

linux /boot/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/... ro quiet splash

You can force enable KMS early start by appending "radeon.modeset=1" (for radeon cards) or "i915.modeset=1" (for intel cards) to your kernel options:

linux /boot/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/... radeon.modeset=1

linux /boot/vmlinuz-linux root=/dev/... i915.modeset=1

You may also edit the file Template:Filename and append your kernel options to the line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="". To re-generate Template:Filename run:

# grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

Themes

You can install Template:Package AUR from the AUR. After installing, look at the available themes like so:

ls /usr/share/splashy/themes

The folder name is the theme name. Now edit Template:Filename and change the theme name to the one you want, eg.:

<current_theme>archlinux-simplyblack</current_theme>

Note: Themes ending in 43 are of 4:3 aspect ratio - the others are widescreen.

Rebuild your kernel image with:

# mkinitcpio -p [name of your kernel preset]

and reboot.

Troubleshooting

GNOME will not shut down

Problem: You are using Gnome, and starting GDM as a daemon, Splashy causes Gnome to not be able to properly shutdown/reboot.

Fix: Remove gdm from DAEMONS in Template:Filename, and set it up in [[Display manager#inittab method|Template:Filename]].

Links

• http://splashy.alioth.debian.org
• http://www.directfb.org