Silent boot?

[Ilya Ilembitov]

Just ran across this post about
NetBSD:http://www.feyrer.de/NetBSD/bx/blosxom.cgi/nb_20100430_2300.html

Turns out, they have a special boottime option that lets the OS boot
(almost) without any messages. Which I found even more appealing that
some graphical bootsplash images. Does OpenBSD have anything like
that? Google left me with nothing. What if I am running the same
stable release of OpenBSD on my box for a month and don't need any
verbosity, since I don't change anything (so the system is unlikely to
fail)? Also, what can be done for redirecting the dmesg output to a
local file? OK, I can get all the dmesg cat'ed at some point of the
boot process. But what if my system couldn't actually boot? For that
kind of occasion, I need my whole dmesg to be stored at any given
point, so I could access it. How do I do that?

[Floor Terra]

Post by Ilya Ilembitov
Also, what can be done for redirecting the dmesg output to a
local file?

See /var/run/dmesg.boot


Floor

[Philip Guenther]

Post by Ilya Ilembitov
Just ran across this post about
NetBSD:http://www.feyrer.de/NetBSD/bx/blosxom.cgi/nb_20100430_2300.html
Turns out, they have a special boottime option that lets the OS boot
(almost) without any messages. Which I found even more appealing that
some graphical bootsplash images. Does OpenBSD have anything like
that?

Nope.

Post by Ilya Ilembitov
Google left me with nothing. What if I am running the same
stable release of OpenBSD on my box for a month and don't need any
verbosity, since I don't change anything (so the system is unlikely to
fail)?

Gotcha: you don't need any verbosity, except when you do. I suggest
you report when something is excessively verbose, but otherwise ignore
the output. Since you don't actually state what your problem is, I
declare that this solves your problem.

...

Post by Ilya Ilembitov
But what if my system couldn't actually boot?

Sounds like something you'll need to think about if you decide to
develop this "silent boot" feature for yourself. What sort of
support/usability tradeoffs will you be willing to make when you write
it?


Philip Guenther

[Eric S Pulley]

--On Tuesday, July 06, 2010 02:43:42 +0400 Ilya Ilembitov

Post by Ilya Ilembitov
Just ran across this post about
NetBSD:http://www.feyrer.de/NetBSD/bx/blosxom.cgi/nb_20100430_2300.html
Turns out, they have a special boottime option that lets the OS boot
(almost) without any messages. Which I found even more appealing that
some graphical bootsplash images. Does OpenBSD have anything like
that? Google left me with nothing. What if I am running the same
stable release of OpenBSD on my box for a month and don't need any
verbosity, since I don't change anything (so the system is unlikely to
fail)? Also, what can be done for redirecting the dmesg output to a
local file? OK, I can get all the dmesg cat'ed at some point of the
boot process. But what if my system couldn't actually boot? For that
kind of occasion, I need my whole dmesg to be stored at any given
point, so I could access it. How do I do that?

Just make your console com0 then you wont see anything between BIOS and the
login. If you have a problem booting hook up a serial console and see
what's up. Having said that I think it is dumb to *not* want to see the
boot messages and I hate systems that hide that information from me, but
that's just me.

[Tony Abernethy]

Eric S Pulley wrote:
... and I hate systems that hide that information from me, but
that's just me.

Nope. Not just you.
A system that hides stuff has to be an order of magnitude
more correct just to break even.

[Vadim Zhukov]

Post by Ilya Ilembitov
But what if my system couldn't actually boot? For that
kind of occasion, I need my whole dmesg to be stored at any given
point, so I could access it. How do I do that?

And where do you want dmesg to be saved if system did not mount any
filesystems? And if mounted, there is /var/run/dmesg.boot.

I do not see the problem with chatty dmesg. Moreover, after looking in
Linux ones I found OpenBSD boot logs rather compact and elegant. What
the problem with ignoring it? And what problem do you want to solve
implementing graphical bootup?

--
WBR,
Vadim Zhukov

[Michael Burk]

I second that. I've used Red Hat for many years, and the start up
messages have grown so much that it's hard to find useful information
amongst all the clutter. But I always turn off the graphical boot
anyway. On the other end, Solaris never tells you enough.

I absolutely love the OpenBSD dmesg. It's concise yet thorough.
There's no need to dig through /proc files (Linux) or run prtconf -v
(Solaris) for system configuration info.

The only use case for a silent boot that makes sense to me is an
embedded device, so as not to frighten the end users. But then you cut
out a lot of valuable information when something goes wrong. But maybe
there are other use cases I haven't thought of.

-- Michael

Post by Vadim Zhukov

Post by Ilya Ilembitov
But what if my system couldn't actually boot? For that
kind of occasion, I need my whole dmesg to be stored at any given
point, so I could access it. How do I do that?

And where do you want dmesg to be saved if system did not mount any
filesystems? And if mounted, there is /var/run/dmesg.boot.
I do not see the problem with chatty dmesg. Moreover, after looking in
Linux ones I found OpenBSD boot logs rather compact and elegant. What
the problem with ignoring it? And what problem do you want to solve
implementing graphical bootup?
--
WBR,
Vadim Zhukov