Hey how are you? i wanted to try bootsplash, it looks good, but to install it i need to compile my kernel with initrd. I have compiled kernel 2.6.3 many times and no problem, but now i cant do it with initrd. I applied the wolk 1.0 patch, which includes cramfs patch for initrd because this warning:

Warning: You are using the initrd option, that may not
work unless you have applied the initrd cramfs patch to
the kernel, or modified mkinitrd not to use cramfs by
default. The cramfs initrd patch, is included in the
Debian supplied kernel sources, but is not present in
pristine kernel sources.
By default, I assume you know what you are doing, and I
apologize for being so annoying. Should I abort[Ny]

What do i need to compile the kernel with initrd?the only thing i changed was selecting ide-disk as a module because i had to for the initrd. Do i have to change more things in the kernel? when i do make-kpkg kernel-image --initrd, i get the warnng above, i say no, and i get the .deb, then i install it and everything ok, but when i restart it says kernel panic: unable to mount root... has anyone had the same problem?thnx

Hi Ykcorse,

-I'm also trying to get a nice bootsplash, but it's far more difficult than I had expected. Maybe we can help each other...

-I tried compiling a 2.6.5 kernel from debian sources. I used a config for menuconfig from my 2.6.4 kernel I had already compiled and worked fine, but the resulting kernel was unbootable, like yours. I just couldn't get it booting... I finally solved this by using a config from a (self compiled) 2.6.3 kernel.

-I also got a lot trouble finding the right options (framebuffer support and the like) for the bootsplash: are there some invisible dependencies between kernel-options? Sometimes I just couldn't find a necessary option...

-I've often solved problems with unbootable kernel-images by compiling options into the kernel. Don't really know why it works, but it often helps. It is very important to have modules for you root filesystem compiled into your kernel (as *, not as m), but you probably know that already... Or maybe you should check your kernel-config... I think you need to select cramfs too if you need the patch...

Well, I don't know that much about it, maybe I can give you some ideas...

-Why do you need initrd by the way? I found on bootsplash.org:

Next you need to attach the picture plus a header, defining text windows and such to the initrd (in the example, this is done for 1024x768. specify other resolutions, if available) :
/sbin/splash -s -f /etc/bootsplash/themes/yourtheme/config/bootsplash-1024x768.cfg >> /boot/initrd.splash

Apparently you write an initrd for the splash (cause the file initrd.splash isn't in /boot by default, right?).

Hmm, I will just try installing a kernel without initrd, compile the splash utilities, and try to get it working. My goodness, I've been compiling kernels the whole day and I haven't seen a single bootsplash yet!

Hope you have more luck!

Corien

I don't understand it I think: I have a theme and kernel support, and a initrd.splash. And now? No effect...

I see Yckorse's message is a bit outdated, I 've been talking to myself

It works!!! You don't need to compile with initrd: but you must give grub (if you use grub) an option
initrd /boot/initrd.splash
I'm really happy I finally got it working, all the work yesterday isn't thrown away. I got great help from this site:

http://bulma.net/impresion.phtml?nIdNoticia=1812

- Some notes on the site:
the link to the splashutils doesn't exist anymore, but you must go to the same site:
ftp://ftp.suse.com/pub/people/stepan...es/bootsplash/
and download bootsplash-3.1.tar.bz2. Unzip it, cd into the Utilities directory and 'make' the utilities.

- This entry in grub worked for me (the example on the site didn't):

title Debian GNU/Linux, kernel 2.6.5 met bootsplash
root (hd0,6)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.5 root=/dev/hda7 vga=791
initrd /boot/initrd.splash
savedefault
boot

Hope I can help anyone some further with this. Bootsplash.org is great, but the explanation on how to get your bootsplash working lacks, especially the part after recompiling the kernel...