Plymouth or not? That is the question.

[jakebpg]

Windows has an interactive boot that you can use to see what is happening at boot. Simply hit F8. Now if you want the more technical way of viewing what's happening I'd have to look it up since I've been retired for 5 years now.

But as I said these splash screens are simply eye candy so that all the boot info is hidden. Most users could care less what is happening at boot. The other reason for these splash screens is for customization for corporate use and support links that can be added. In windows on the about property pages you can add links to your internal support sites along with adding a contact us link.

I can get the info if you wish but it will take time to find it as I've said I've been retired for 5 years now and would have to search through many volumes of data that have kept and didn't pass along at retirement simply because of it being personal experience that made the collection possible. Many of these things can be found in the windows system tweaks add-ons with step by step instructions on how to achieve these tasks.

The reason for Plymouth is like I said, what user wants to look at what amounts to a dumb terminal running in read only mode? It certainly does NOT look like a professional system when you see a dumb terminal pop-up for boot. People want to see graphics not 70s and 80s dumb terminals. In windows it's mostly registry tweaks and a couple of files that need to be changed if you don't want the default windows boot graphics.

[smr54]

What I find ironic, especially as RedHat is supposed to be server system, is that there is a 3 year old bug that boot messages aren't logged to boot.log. Granted, Fedora and RH are separate entities, but it shows where they place their emphasis. (It's been fixed in RHEL6, but remains broken in 5.x)

In fairness, that is the direction Linux goes, as has been said. The vast majority of distributions are Ubuntu clones, with the aim of making this or that easier for the Windows/Apple user.

Though Rupert comments that it's easy to strip out various things, it becomes harder and harder with each version. This probably has advantages for the new user, but one does think that said new user would probably prefer that it actually booted (as it may only show a blank screen with many NVidia cards), and that once it booted, it would work properly.


I prefer the dumb terminal like boot--I like to know what's happening. However, I've realized that I'm in the minority, and as long as work requirements make me use RH and Fedora, I'm stuck with it.

On the other hand, I'd say that a good 50-80 percent of the problems I see on these forums are ones that I don't have, because I boot into text mode, use fluxbox, and avoid NetworkManager.

[Mariusz W]

Originally Posted by jakebpg

Windows has an interactive boot that you can use to see what is happening at boot. Simply hit F8. Now if you want the more technical way of viewing what's happening I'd have to look it up since I've been retired for 5 years now.

F8 only allows one to select a boot option, like Safe Mode. No amount of hitting F8 actually is going to show the boot sequence. This is why I got so interested in what you said in an earlier post. If you can provide detailed instructions how to make Windows boot sequence visible, I will be most grateful.

[jakebpg]

Originally Posted by Mariusz W

F8 only allows one to select a boot option, like Safe Mode. No amount of hitting F8 actually is going to show the boot sequence. This is why I got so interested in what you said in an earlier post. If you can provide detailed instructions how to make Windows boot sequence visible, I will be most grateful.

Booting into safe mode does in fact show you what is loading. What do you think that dos screen is before windows loads into safe mode?

Those are all the drivers and device files that are being loaded for basic system operation.

Interactive mode is accessed in a different manner but as I said I will have to look it up and post back later on how to get to the interactive boot option.

[DBelton]

You can get some of the boot information by adding the /NOGUIBOOT switch to the line in your boot.ini file.

like so:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home Edition" /NOGUIBOOT

works for 2000 and XP, not sure about win7

But this is a Fedora forum, not a windows one.

[Mariusz W]

Originally Posted by jakebpg

Booting into safe mode does in fact show you what is loading. What do you think that dos screen is before windows loads into safe mode?

Those are all the drivers and device files that are being loaded for basic system operation

Yes, one can select the `boot loging' option. It writes to a file in WIndows system folder. But that file is just a (not very long) list of driver's loaded (or skipped). Nothing more. Nothing at all about what activities Windows is involved during boot. All of that is hidden from sight.

Originally Posted by jakebpg

Interactive mode is accessed in a different manner but as I said I will have to look it up and post back later on how to get to the interactive boot option.

I will be grateful if you can find it.

---------- Post added at 09:18 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:13 AM ----------

Originally Posted by DBelton

You can get some of the boot information by adding the /NOGUIBOOT switch to the line in your boot.ini file.

like so:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home Edition" /NOGUIBOOT

works for 2000 and XP, not sure about win7

Thank you. Unfortunately, /noguiboot seems to be queitly ignored in XP SP3. Tried all sorts of things to put in the boot.ini file but no effect: the boot sequence is completely hidden. According to an MSDN Knowledge Base article, that option should have worked for XP SP2. [My apologies to all: I couldn't miss an opportunity asking jakebpg after the post in which he claimed that making Windows boot sequence visible was something trivial. In such situations I always assume my own ignorance and desire to learn what I don't know from those who do.]

[jakebpg]

Originally Posted by Mariusz W

Yes, one can select the `boot loging' option. It writes to a file in WIndows system folder. But that file is just a (not very long) list of driver's loaded (or skipped). Nothing more. Nothing at all about what activities Windows is involved during boot. All of that is hidden from sight.



I will be grateful if you can find it.

---------- Post added at 09:18 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:13 AM ----------



Thank you. Unfortunately, /noguiboot seems to be queitly ignored in XP SP3. Tried all sorts of things to put in the boot.ini file but no effect: the boot sequence is completely hidden. According to an MSDN Knowledge Base article, that option should have worked for XP SP2. [My apologies to all: I couldn't miss an opportunity asking jakebpg after the post in which he claimed that making Windows boot sequence visible was something trivial. In such situations I always assume my own ignorance and desire to learn what I don't know from those who do.]

For interactive boot in windows do the following

Click start then in the run dialogue box type msconfig. A new window will open. On the general tab click interactive boot(may have changed in newer versions since 2k). save and reboot. You should now be prompted to step through the boot sequence of windows. Not much to really see as is the case in Linux also. Just the drivers and needed files for the OS to load. However it is a good diagnostic tool if you are having problems with the system and wish to keep certain drivers from loading.

I'll keep looking because I know that it also can be set to boot and show all files and drivers every-time you boot the system, but beware your boot time will increase doing this since it now has to display every file and driver to boot the system. Keep in mind that there are some things that simply will not display just as in Linux not all of boot is displayed for the user to see all that is happening.

Hope this is what you were looking for and as I said I will continue the search to make this change permanent if you wish.

[JamesNZ]

Originally Posted by jakebpg

On the general tab click interactive boot(may have changed in newer versions since 2k).

In Win7 only options under 'General' is 'Normal Startup', 'Diagnostic Startup', and 'Selective Startup'. No sign of Interactive Boot but as you said it may have changed since 2k...

[drunkahol]

Having dealt with really quite large numbers of headless RHEL servers in lights-out datacentres, I can say that theboot messages are pretty superfluous. If you tinker to a large extent, then expect things to break once in a while. I prefer my boot messages hidden. To have a pretty graphic during boot is nice, but to me it's not the end of the world.

To my parents, however, plymouth hides the 'messy gibberish' (their words not mine). I install their PC with the latest Fedora every year or so. From that point, boot messages are irrelevant as I'm several hundred miles away.

Sure, if you WANT to see those messages, configure your build so you can. But a default build of a desktop distro really ought to have such stuff hidden.

Cheers,

Duncan

[jakebpg]

Originally Posted by JamesNZ

In Win7 only options under 'General' is 'Normal Startup', 'Diagnostic Startup', and 'Selective Startup'. No sign of Interactive Boot but as you said it may have changed since 2k...

Try selective startup for interactive. Different word same meaning!

It's a matter of semantics.

[CronoCloud]

Originally Posted by sonoran

trying to
appeal to users who would rather watch a balloon fill up than see what
is going on with their computer.

Originally Posted by JamesNZ

And besides that, who doesn't enjoy that geeky feeling looking at those incomprehensible boot messages?

I use Plymouth....I don't need to see the boot messages:

1. I don't know what half that stuff is, and I don't really NEED to know.

2. I don't feel the need to measure my e-worth by looking at boot messages that I don't need to look at and as I said above, mostly incomprehensible to me. I'm not some supposed "hardcore" linux user saying: "D00D, look at all these boot messages, I'm a h8rdc0r3 and 3733t, not like those Windoze luzers"

Ron Rogers Jr. (CronoCloud)

[sonoran]

So far the two arguments in favor of Plymouth are ignorance and alcohol. Self-explanatory, really.

[JamesNZ]

Originally Posted by jakebpg

Try selective startup for interactive.

I'm actually using selective startup right now with no sign of anything but that flashing windows logo... Under selective startup is:

1. Load system services(enabled on my PC)
2. Load startup items(enabled on my PC)
3. Use original boot configuration(not enabled on my PC)

Feels a bit weird discussing the devilishly un-GPL'ed Win7 in the heart of a linux forum...

[RahulSundaram]

Originally Posted by smr54

What I find ironic, especially as RedHat is supposed to be server system, is that there is a 3 year old bug that boot messages aren't logged to boot.log. Granted, Fedora and RH are separate entities, but it shows where they place their emphasis. (It's been fixed in RHEL6, but remains broken in 5.x)

In fairness, that is the direction Linux goes, as has been said. The vast majority of distributions are Ubuntu clones, with the aim of making this or that easier for the Windows/Apple user.

Amusingly, most people seemed to have missed the fact that Plymouth is not merely eye candy but also the utility which logs messages into the boot log. This is how RHEL 6.0 boot logging works and the same thing for recent Fedora versions.

[Finalzone]

Originally Posted by sonoran

I find it symptomatic of the direction fedora is taking generally - trying to
appeal to users who would rather watch a balloon fill up than see what
is going on with their computer.

Press ESC key to see what is going on on reboot. Also, there is other graphical boot variations that can be changed (Solar theme, fedora logo to name a few) and Plymouth can be customized.