Linux Format Magazine, September 2005 (Paul Hudson)
Product Description
The KDE and Gnome desktops have developed into mature operating environments. These technologies not only act as interfaces between the user, the powerful Linux kernel and GNU operating system, but they do so in a fun and intuitive way. Many users are content with the tools and facilities included with these desktops, but--for those who are ready to probe a little deeper--much more functionality can be found by going under the hood.
With hacks that any user can follow, Linux Desktop Hacks demonstrates how easy it is to modify Linux to suit your desires. The book is packed with tips on customizing and improving the interface, boosting performance, administering your desktop, and generally making the most out of what X, KDE, Gnome, and the console have to offer.
From the practical to the whimsical, and some things you never thought of trying, the hacks in the book include the following, and more:
- Kill and Resurrect the Master Boot Record
- Jazz Up Your Debian System Boot
- Energize Your Console with Macro Music Magic
- Konquer Remote Systems Without Passwords
- Run KDE on the Bleeding Edge
- View Microsoft Word Documents in a Terminal
- Read Yahoo! Mail from Any Email Client
- Motion Capture and Video Conferencing Fun
- Automate Your Life with cron
- Protect Yourself from Windows Applications
- Make an Internet Connection Using Bluetooth and a Mobile Phone
- Print to Unsupported Printers
- Accelerate Your Gaming
From the Publisher
About the Author
Nicholas Petreley began his career in computing in 1983 as an Assembly-language programmer for a signal-processing research and development firm called Adaptronics, located in McLean, Virginia, and he hasn't been able to escape the field since. After getting a taste of writing as a weekly columnist for the Times in New Jersey, Nick began spending more time with the English language than with Pascal, C, C++, and the dozens of other languages that previously dominated his life. Nick's former lives also include conference advisor for LinuxWorld Expo, creator of the Golden Penguin Bowl quiz show, editorial director of LinuxWorld, editor-in-chief of Network Computing World, executive editor of the InfoWorld Test Center, award-winning columnist for InfoWorld, and regular technical columnist for ComputerWorld. You can find his current articles on Newsforge and in other publications under various pseudonyms. He is a columnist for Tux magazine, the author of the Official Fedora Companion, a part-time Evans data analyst, a freelance writer, a creator and maintainer of the VAR-oriented web site (http://www.varlinux.org), and a professional open source consultant.
Jono Bacon is an established writer, developer, and musician. Jono has been working as a full-time writer and technology consultant/developer since 2000, for a variety of publishers and companies. They include Linux Format, Linux Pro, Linux Magazine, Linux User & Developer, Linux Journal, PC Plus, MacFormat, MacTech, Digital Home, Newsforge, Sitepoint, and ContentPeople. Jono has also worked as a writer/consultant/developer for Trolltech, Apple, theKompany.com, the University of Wolverhampton, Delta Institute, and others. In addition to this work, Jono has been a part of the Linux community since 1998 and has worked for various free software projects including KDE and Kafka, and he founded Linux UK, the KDE Usability Study, KDE::Enterprise, and the Infopoint Project. He currently works on various free software projects, as well as for OpenAdvantage in Birmingham, UK, as a professional open source consultant.
Excerpt
Boot Debian with an optional graphics screen and progress bar, and spiff up your text consoles by running them in graphics mode.
Here’s how to add a graphical boot splash to your Debian distribution, the only popular Linux distribution that lacks a built-in boot splash. Windows and Mac OS X have a graphical boot process, as do all the most popular versions of Linux, including Fedora Core (Red Hat), SUSE, and Mandrake. Debian lacks one. (OK, to be perfectly fair, so does Slackware, but currently there’s no simple solution for bringing a graphical boot screen to Slackware.) Here’s how to bring your Debian system up-to-date with the rest.
You must use a 2.6 version of the Linux kernel for the boot splash to work. If you are using a 2.4 or earlier version of the Linux kernel and are not willing to upgrade to a 2.6 version, you cannot use this hack. This hack also assumes you know how to configure, build, and install a new Linux kernel, and that you already have chosen a version of the 2.6 Linux kernel source code and have that source code on your hard drive. "Compile a Kernel" [Hack #88] provides instructions on how to build and install a Linux kernel if you have never done so. Once you know how to build and install a Linux kernel, you will need to build your kernel with support for frame-buffer graphics, frame-buffer graphics-based consoles, and graphical boot splash screens to make this hack work.
The boot splash portion of this hack gives you a choice of booting in silent mode or verbose mode. Silent mode displays a graphical background (such as a picture of Tux, the official Linux penguin), and a progress bar to give you a rough idea of where you are during the boot process. You can press F2 at any time to switch to verbose mode, where you see exactly what is happening at boot time. When the boot process is finished, all your virtual consoles work in frame-buffer graphics mode.
Whether you boot to a console or to a graphical login manager, you always have a number of virtual text consoles available to you. You can switch between them by pressing Ctrl-Alt-F1 to get to the first virtual console, Ctrl-Alt-F2 to get to the second, and so on. The difference between a framebuffer console and a normal console is that the frame-buffer console works in graphics mode, which allows you to display more text on the screen (using smaller fonts), yet keep the text very sharp and readable. The consoles are still primarily for text-based use, but because they are running in graphics mode, you can also have a graphical background behind the text.
At the time of this writing, two substantially different types of patch sets to the Linux kernel are available for boot splash support. The patch set you need for this particular hack is the one that works now, but it is slowly being phased out in favor of an approach that requires far fewer patches to the kernel. This latter approach isn’t quite ready for Debian yet. Keep your eye on the web site. I have been working with other Debian developers to create a more modern boot splash package, and it should eventually show up on that site.
For now, however, you need to work with what’s out there. Even so, it’s difficult if not impossible to find kernels prepatched or precompiled with the kind of frame-buffer boot splash support you need for this older approach to boot splash. So, you have to patch and compile your own Linux kernel to make this work. You can download a patch from bootsplash.de/files.
Log in as root and change to the directory /usr/src:
$ su -
Password:
# cd /usr/src
Choose the patch that matches the 2.6 kernel you are using, and download that patch to the directory /usr/src. For this example, let’s assume you are using the Linux kernel 2.6.8.1, so download the file bootsplash-3.1.4-sp3-2. 6.8.1.diff.
It’s always good practice to do a dry run with the patch process just to make sure the patch will apply cleanly:
# cd /usr/src/linux-2.6.8.1
# cat ../bootsplash-3.1.4-sp3-2.6.8.1.diff | patch -p1 --dry-run
patching file drivers/char/keyboard.c
patching file drivers/char/n_tty.c
patching file drivers/char/vt.c
patching file drivers/video/Kconfig
patching file drivers/video/Makefile
patching file drivers/video/bootsplash/Kconfig
patching file drivers/video/bootsplash/Makefile
patching file drivers/video/bootsplash/bootsplash.c
patching file drivers/video/bootsplash/bootsplash.h
patching file drivers/video/bootsplash/decode-jpg.c
patching file drivers/video/bootsplash/decode-jpg.h
patching file drivers/video/bootsplash/render.c
patching file drivers/video/console/fbcon.c
patching file drivers/video/console/fbcon.h
patching file include/linux/console_struct.h
patching file include/linux/fb.h
patching file kernel/panic.c
It looks like there are no errors. Do it again for real by running the patch command, without the –dry-run option:
# cat ../bootsplash-3.1.4-sp3-2.6.8.1.diff | patch -p1
patching file drivers/char/keyboard.cpatching file drivers/char/n_tty.c
patching file drivers/char/vt.c
patching file drivers/video/Kconfig
patching file drivers/video/Makefile
patching file drivers/video/bootsplash/Kconfig
patching file drivers/video/bootsplash/Makefile
etc...
Now it’s time to configure the kernel. Because this hack assumes you have already configured and compiled this kernel without the boot splash feature, all you need to do is configure the boot splash feature and the other kernel features on which boot splash depends.
