How to suppress boot messages?

[Pete]

Hi all

Anyone know how/where to suppress all those messages whilst Puppy is booting up?

Ideally I would like to see logo.16 at first then screen can go blank until X has loaded.

Thanks.
Pete
(Slacko 6.3 32 bit)

[Pete]

Never mind, completely forgot about kernel boot options.
Loglevel fixed it.

[Pete]

Ooops no, loglevel=0 made hardly any difference.
How does one suppress all those messages like loading xxx.sfs.....DONE and so on?

Ah and also, that ridiculous barking?

[Flash]

I don't know the answer to your questions but it might help if you told us which version of Puppy and how you're using it -- boot from CD with Save file, frugal install, full install on hard drive etc... Also, perhaps something about the hardware.

[Pete]

I don't know the answer to your questions but it might help if you told us which version of Puppy

In my original post (Slacko 6.3 32 bit)

and how you're using it -- boot from CD with Save file, frugal install, full install on hard drive etc...

booting directly from iso on USB stick.

Also, perhaps something about the hardware.

Surely that has no bearing as it should be the same across all compatible hardware?

[puppyluvr]

Hello,
/usr/share/audio/2barks.au
/usr/share/audio/2barks.wav

As for the boot logging, you could leave it at a splash, but why?
Nice to see any boot errors before they become a problem.

[Pete]

Hi puppyluvr

As for the boot logging, you could leave it at a splash, but why?
Nice to see any boot errors before they become a problem.

I agree and I always leave them on for me, but they are very intimidating
for a typical Windows user.

The less they see of all the "Linux -speak", the more chance of them giving it a try.

You won't believe how many Windows types see all that text flying by and are immediately put off.
Keep in mind that in the Windows world, you see nothing unless you select safe mode and 99% of users don't even know it exists.

/usr/share/audio/2barks.au
/usr/share/audio/2barks.wav

Thanks, I nuked the whole lot.

[Sailor Enceladus]

I agree and I always leave them on for me, but they are very intimidating
for a typical Windows user.

I disagree. I bought a laptop for $20 that came with Lubuntu and it just hanged at a black screen for about a minute before the desktop appeared, which made it seem broken, and many would not wait that long to know if the laptop was working or not and just throw it in the trash bin. Replacing Lubuntu it with Slacko fixed it.

[tlchost]

The less they see of all the "Linux -speak", the more chance of them giving it a try.

Well spoke!

[LazY Puppy]

The less they see of all the "Linux -speak", the more chance of them giving it a try.

As far as I can say, the only way to suppress the boot messages is to edit the init script in intrd.gz plus some more files like: /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit and /etc/profile in the puppy main sfs. Probably there are a few more...

Search those files for >/dev/console or even > /dev/console and change it to >/dev/null.

[musher0]

Hi, pete.

Careful with those log level messages. If you ask for more verbose, your /tmp/xerrs.log
file will fill with megs of useless messages in no time, and if you specify less verbose,
Puppy may jam (it needs a minimum amount of message logging to operate properly).

Just saying (from experience, actually; although I'm not at the level of "Lazy_Puppy"
or "puppyluvr").

IIRC, the error-level log (verbosity) is defined only once for all the Puppy operations.
Whether it be for checking the boot-up or when playing xemeraldia (a game).

If I may suggest an air-head solution (I have my moments!): if you don't like those
messages... don't look at them?! Look elsewhere?

BFN

[bigpup]

You won't believe how many Windows types see all that text flying by and are immediately put off.

This is Linux not Windows.
If they can not or will not understand that simple fact.
They do not need to use Linux.

That is not the only thing in Puppy that is not like Windows.

That windows 10 does not look like Windows 3.1.
I do not want to use it.
Come on!!

I tired to teach my wife how to drive a car with standard transmission. You have to manually change the gears.
She shifted from 1st to 2nd and into 3rd gear.
She asked me:
"You have to do that every time?"

I guess I should of said:
"No, only when you want to."

[Flash]

There are Linux distributions that cater for the crowd that doesn't want to know what's going on under the hood. Puppy was developed by an artist who likes to tinker with what's under the hood, so Puppy gives a lot of feedback and Puppy runs as root. That's why I like Puppy. But I can see why the boot-time messages might be off-putting to someone who's just trying Linux for the first time.
There should be a middle way, not a screen that stays blank for a whole minute, but not a constant flood of cryptic and alarming messages either. Perhaps something like the bouncing cursor that says a program is working, so just be patient.

[8Geee]

Sometimes in BIOS there is an option to display a splash-screen. Quiet boot is the option to use (enabled= splash-screen).

[LazY Puppy]

Ok.

I gave this a quick shot. Tested in tahr 6.0.2 - was just a three minutes task. This post has taken some more minute after completion and re-reading it for typos.

As suggested above I had edited the init script in intrd.gz plus /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit in the puppy main sfs.

File /etc/profile does not have /dev/console.

Searched those files for /dev/console and change it to /dev/null.

Here is what appears on the screen when booting:

- the dots, when it searches for puppy files (incl. 'done')
- message about gtk-icon-cache (the full line as usual)
- messages from 'xwin' flashing very short before X appears on the screen.

Currently running this testing tahr 6.0.2 and am posting from it!

However:

To replace all /dev/console by /dev/null is NOT recommended as -at least- those messages like 'kernel panic' or 'sfs not found, dropping out to console' and similar error messages should be kept as echoed to /dev/console - otherwise you will not see anything, if something's going wrong!

[Pete]

Hi everyone.

Wow, lots of responses and ideas, thank you all.

Let me say up front that I certainly don't like the idea of suppressing any messages
but for this instance it's an opportunity to make some "converts".

As @bigpup wrote with his analogy of driving, it's a mind set and that is exactly
the point.
The "other" crowd have a certain mindset/expectation that the screen is pretty
much blank (with just the rotating thing) until the O.S. boots.
If something goes wrong, what does the average user do? panics and calls their tech support.
Plus the average "tech support" probably knows diddly squat about anything
else other than DLLS, exes and VXDs.

Believe me, those cryptic messages are really informative to us but for
the average man in the street, it will send them running for the hills.

@Flash
I really like your idea of giving people the option, after all, that is what Linux is all about, options.

@BGee
Thanks I will investigate.

@musher0
Point taken and noted about minimum number of messages.

@tlchost
Thank you. Glad someone agrees.

@Sailor Enceladus
Point taken but let's face it, if it was the average man in the street:

1) they would not even have given a second look at the laptop

2) Even if they had purchased it, messages could be flying back and forth
until the cows came home and they would still be as much use as if
they were in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.
The likes of us, would immediately reach for Puppy on a USB stick and try it out, so the original messages (or lack of them) would be meaningless anyway.

@LazY Puppy
Many thanks for going to all the trouble.
It is exactly your method that I am now pursuing.

Pete

[bigpup]

I am freaking out when Puppy boots, because it shows me some messages that end with a green OK.
That tells me something good just happened, but I can not handle that much information.
I have no idea what I will do if one of those messages ever ends in anything but a green OK.
Would that indicate something is wrong?
No way that could be of any help to me.

I like Windows. It just locks up and tells me nothing.
All I have to do is get somebody else to fix it.
I have no idea what is wrong.
Sure wish it would tell me something happened and it was OK or not.

[musher0]

@bigpup
I don't think mockery is appropriate here. But it's none of my business, of course.

[Smithy]

Ok.

I gave this a quick shot. Tested in tahr 6.0.2 - was just a three minutes task. This post has taken some more minute after completion and re-reading it for typos.

As suggested above I had edited the init script in intrd.gz plus /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit in the puppy main sfs.

File /etc/profile does not have /dev/console.

Searched those files for /dev/console and change it to /dev/null.

Here is what appears on the screen when booting:

- the dots, when it searches for puppy files (incl. 'done')
- message about gtk-icon-cache (the full line as usual)
- messages from 'xwin' flashing very short before X appears on the screen.

Currently running this testing tahr 6.0.2 and am posting from it!

However:

To replace all /dev/console by /dev/null is NOT recommended as -at least- those messages like 'kernel panic' or 'sfs not found, dropping out to console' and similar error messages should be kept as echoed to /dev/console - otherwise you will not see anything, if something's going wrong!

Nice work RSH.
Is there a way to add a full screen like this (Not a brilliant example).

I don't think I have had a kernel panic for a very long time with the Puppies
and have removed the delayed run and everything. It just gets to the desktop and bang, (except for the elusive DO NOT Remove UR Blooming USB STICK).
Then Radkey's Control panel is there if you need to setup anything.
I understand that the console logging is handy, but it would be nice to try out a
dumbed down boot too.

[LazY Puppy]

Generally -in theory- it should be possible.

Since Windows, Ubuntu, Mint, Debian and other minor Linux distributions (the one and only major Linux distribution to me is: Puppy) have splash images, it should be possible to have this in Puppy as well.

Though, I don't know if Puppy is coming with the necessary tools included to achieve such.

However: this would need some more tweaks of the init script and /etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit (plus a few more probably).

A major tweak would be to comment out the command clear within these files which returns a clean console/prompt screen.

Just to call it once in init and then to print the splash image to the screen.

There are two steps probably to do this, as at early boot there is everything executed by busybox functions; after doing the switch_root most of the busybox functions are replaced by those binaries from puppy main sfs.

I just don't know if there is a busybox function or -after the switch_root- a binary that could print the splash image to the console/prompt screen.

I can imagine a new boot option to boot by boot messages as usual or to boot just by the splash image.

Needs just two variables:

1. if bootoption = echotoconsole then ECHOTO="/dev/console"
2. if bootoption = echotonull then ECHOTO="/dev/null"

So, instead of replacing /dev/console by /dev/null just replace it by $ECHOTO.

Depending on the boot option it will echo the usual boot messages either to console or just to /dev/null.

Everything is possible - of course!

Those warning about usb flash drive (WARNING! Do not unplug USB Flash drive!) is placed in delayedrun (checked in tahr 6.0.2 - I think it's equal in all woof/woofce puppies).

Edit:

Had give this a quick try. Used 'pmessage' as for the new boot option to submit by boot entry in menu.lst. Worked!