Linux.Desktop.Hacks [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

Hack 5. Create Your Own LILO Boot Splash

Create or modify any picture for use as a LILO
boot splash background.

You can easily start from scratch and create any kind of LILO boot
splash background. Just make sure you consider the following:

The image resolution must be 640x480.

The image must be a bitmap.

The image must comprise 255 colors or less, and it must be indexed.

You should plan to create or allocate two areas on the
screenone for the LILO menu and one for the LILO timer, which
ticks down until it automatically boots.

This example bases the LILO boot screen on a KDE screenshot with a
Konsole window open (Figure 1-1). The idea is to
place the LILO boot menu within the Konsole window, and the countdown
timer where the clock appears on the KDE panel. I set up the KDE
screen the way I wanted it to look. If you take a similar approach,
do not use a complex and colorful background, because it probably
will not translate well into 255 colors. I recommend you use the Gimp
to take the screenshot and modify it for use as the LILO boot screen.
[Hack #12] shows you one method of
taking screenshots. Here's how to do it with the
Gimp:

Arrange the KDE screen like the one shown in Figure 1-1.

Switch to another virtual desktop, and start the Gimp (starting the
Gimp in another virtual desktop ensures that the Gimp
won't appear in the screenshot).

Select FileAcquireScreen Shot. This brings up a
dialog box.

Select the Whole Screen radio button.

Give yourself about 5 seconds by entering 5 in
the "Grab after [] Seconds Delay"
field.

Click the OK button.

Switch to the virtual desktop you arranged to be the boot screen, and
do it in less than 5 seconds! The Gimp should snap a screenshot and
present it for your use.




Figure 1-1. Converted KDE screenshot




The next thing you want to do is convert this screen to meet the LILO
requirements for a 640x480 bitmap with 255 indexed colors.
Here's how to do that:

Right-click the image in the Gimp window, and select
ImageScale Image.

Type 640 in the New Width field and
480 in the New Height field.

Change the Interpolation combo box control to read Cubit (Best).

Click the OK button.

Right-click the image again, and select
ImageModeIndexed.

Change the number of colors to 255.

Check the No Color Dithering radio button.

Click the OK button.

This should create a blank area where the clock appears, because that
is where the default countdown timer will go. Generally, you would
choose a color similar to the panel color, but for this example, you
can play it safe by using the color white. Here's
how to create that blank area using the Gimp:

Select the entire rectangular area where the clock appears.

Right-click the image and select EditFill with BG color
(which is white by default).

See Figure 1-2 for an example of what the result
should look like.

Figure 1-2. Bitmap ready for LILO

Now you need to know the XY coordinates on the picture for those
places you plan to place the menu and the timer.

Position your mouse cursor approximately in the upper-left corner of
the black inner portion of the Konsole (somewhere beneath the
prompt). Look at the lower-left corner of the Gimp window, and you
should see the coordinates for your mouse position, which will be the
upper-left corner of your boot menu. My selection indicates the
coordinates 55, 214. Here is the definition of the LILO menu you need
to put in the lilo.conf file:

bmp-table=<x>,<y>,<columns>,<lines>

Let's assume you have up to six entries in your LILO
menu. You need only one column to display that many. So, plug in the
coordinates, along with these details:

bmp-table=55,214,1,6

Now you need to know the coordinates for the timer. Position your
mouse cursor in the upper-left area of the white rectangle where the
clock used to be. This is where the timer will appear. On my screen,
the coordinates I chose were 582, 455. The format of the timer
definitions looks like this:

bmp-timer=<x>,<y>,<fg color>,<bg color>,<shadow color>

You know the coordinates already, so you can fill in that much:

bmp-timer=582p,455p,<fg color>,<bg color>,<shadow color>

Note that the coordinates are followed by the letter
p, which tells LILO that the numbers represent
pixel coordinates.

Now it's time to pick colors.

1.6.1. Picking Colors

Here's the only really tricky part of
creating
the boot image specification for lilo.conf. You
have to specify the colors to use for the menu and the timer. You
specify these colors using an indexed palette. There is no standard
palette of colors; the Gimp creates one based on the colors in your
particular image. When you converted the image to use 255 indexed
colors, the Gimp created a palette for the 255 colors, and you must
use one or more of those colors for your menu and timer.

Here's how to display the palette for your image:
right-click the image and select DialogsIndexed Palette.

Here's the trick to defining colors for your menu
and timer. Click one of the colored blocks in your palette. You
should see the Color Index Number field change to the number of that
block. I happened to click a light yellow block, and that was block
number 235. Click other colors and you'll see the
color index number change accordingly. The color index number is the
number you will use to define the colors for your boot menu and
timer.

Let's make the color of the timer black on white,
with no shadow. On the Index Palette Colormap, find a square that is
white and click it. Make a note of the color index number (in my case
the number is 254). Click a square that is black and note the color
index number. In my case, the black square has a color index number
of 0. Now that you have these color index numbers, you can finish the
bmp-timer definition, which defines the foreground
as black (color index 0) and the background as white (color index
254):

bmp-timer=582p,455p,0,254,

The last comma has nothing after it, because you are not specifying a
shadow color.

Next, define the colors for the boot menu options, which is the menu
you use to select which operating system to boot. The format of that
line is as follows:

bmp-colors=<fg>,<bg>,<sh>,<sel-fg>,<sel-bg>,<sel-sh>

The foreground color of the menu selection is defined by the
<fg> option; <bg>
is the background and <sh> is the shadow for
the text, if you want a shadow. The color of the foreground of the
selected menu entry is controlled by the
<sel-fg> option;
<sel-bg> is the color of the background of
the selected entry, and <sel-sh> is the
color of the text shadow, if you want one.

Assume you want the menu text colors to be white on black, with no
shadows. You already have color index numbers for black and white (0
and 254, respectively), and you know to leave the entry blank for no
shadow. So, here is what the line should look like at this point:

bmp-colors=254,0,,<sel-fg>,<sel-bg>,<sel-sh>

Now you need to define the colors for the current highlighted menu
selection. Because the menu background is black, I picked something
that would create a sharp contrast for the highlighted entry: purple
text on a yellow background.

Click a purple block in the indexed palette and note the color index
number. The index number in my case is 74. Click a light yellow block
and make a note of that color index number. In my case, that number
is 242. There is no shadow, so leave the shadow entries blank. Now
you can fill in the rest of the information for the
bmp-colors line:

bmp-colors=254,0,,74,242,

Logged in as root, save the image as
lilo-kde.bmp and copy it to the
/boot directory:

# cp lilo-kde.bmp /boot

Now you need to edit /etc/lilo.conf. Here is the
complete entry you want to put in the lilo.conf
file for this LILO splash screen. You might have to adjust some of
the coordinates and color index numbers depending on how you
fashioned your KDE screenshot:

install=bmp 
bitmap=/boot/swirl.bmp
bmp-table=55p,214p,1,6
bmp-colors=254,0,,74,242,
bmp-timer=582p,455p,0,254,

Now run lilo to rebuild the boot record and
complete the job:

# lilo -v

Reboot and you should see the LILO boot menu appear in the Konsole
area and the timer appear in the area where the clock was on the
panel.

Here's a summary of the steps to follow to create a
LILO boot splash image:

Download or create your own 640x480 image.

Set the image to have an indexed palette of 255 colors or less.

Choose two areas of the image: one for the menu, and one for the
timer.

If necessary, create rectangles suitable for the menu and timer.

Find the coordinates where you will put the menu and timer.

Choose the colors for the menu entries, selected menu entries, and
timer, and find the numbers for those colors by selecting the
appropriate squares in the Index Palette Colormap.

Save the image as a bitmap file and copy it to
/boot.

Create the appropriate lines in lilo.conf, based
on the information you've collected.

Run lilo to rebuild the boot record.

Reboot.