making debian looking nicer
 

as a part of my efforts to make debian sid look a bit nicer i want to make a nice bootsplash, is it a complicated thing to do in debian? is there a howto for debian sid kernel 2.6.10?

thanks

Actually I've only compiled the 2.6 kernel like once or twice (I prefer to use the Debian kernel images and they come with bootsplash disabled), but I seem to recall that in 2.6 kernels there's an in-built bootsplash option. Just download the kernel source with apt-get and follow the instructions in the sticky thread at the top of this forum. If you already have a Debian kernel image installed, I think you can use the /boot/config-<kernel_version> file to get a usable kernel configuration and just change the bootsplash option and then compile a kernel with bootsplash. There's probably more info about this in the thread I mentioned.

Hmphz, you can try reading:

http://www.desktop-linux.net/bootsplash.htm

It tells the step-by-step installationg of bootsplash program from http://www.bootsplash.de . The instructions should work fine with kernel-source-2.8.*. It involves patching and recompiling kernel though. If you are fine with that, go for it! As the previous post suggest, you could read the sticky post on re-compiling kernel in debian.

thanks, i am compiling the kernel-source-2.6.10 but when i type make xconfig i get the following error:

what can i do about this?

also i tryed to type make menuconfig but the i get:

how can i fix both problems?

To run anything graphical as root in the user environment try:
cp /home/someuser/.Xauthority /root/
and rerun 'make xconfig'

The second, apt-get install ncurses-dev. (I only have ncurses-base, ncurses-bin and ncurses-term installed, not the dev...)

well make xconfig still doesn't work, the same error but make menuconfig does work. i compiled the kernel and install the .deb but when i run:
apt-get install bootsplash
i get the following error:

Need to get 0B of archives.
After unpacking 0B of additional disk space will be used.
Setting up bootsplash (3.1-6) ...
Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: at /usr/share/perl5/Debconf/FrontEnd/Gnome.pm line 47.
debconf: unable to initialize frontend: Gnome
debconf: (DISPLAY problem?)
debconf: falling back to frontend: Dialog
Building bootsplash initrd image...
cp: cannot stat `.orig': No such file or directory
cp: cannot stat `': No such file or directory
dpkg: error processing bootsplash (--configure):
subprocess post-installation script returned error exit status 1
dpkg: dependency problems prevent configuration of bootsplash-theme-debian-wave: bootsplash-theme-debian-wave depends on bootsplash (>= 3.0.7-5); however:
Package bootsplash is not configured yet.
dpkg: error processing bootsplash-theme-debian-wave (--configure):
dependency problems - leaving unconfigured
Errors were encountered while processing:
bootsplash
bootsplash-theme-debian-wave

also, what can i delete from /usr/src? do i still need the kernel source?
here is my /usr/src content:
kernel-doc-2.6.10_Custom.1_all.deb
kernel-headers-2.6.10
kernel-headers-2.6.10_Custom.1_i386.deb
kernel-headers-2.6.8-2
kernel-headers-2.6.8-2-k7
kernel-image-2.6.10_Custom.1_i386.deb
kernel-kbuild-2.6-3
kernel-source-2.6.10
kernel-source-2.6.10.tar.bz2
kernel-source-2.6.10_Custom.1_all.deb
kernel-source-2.6.10_Custom.1_i386.changes
linux

linux points to the new kernel source

thanks

sorry...

I'm sorry for the previous typo. It was supposed to be kernel 2.6.*.

Hmphz, I tried that on my system just now. I got the same problem. So I guess you're not alone this time. I'll try to solve it during weekend (no promise I can though =S). It's 1 am at my place now.. need to zZz first.. :D

Anyone else can help?

Cheers (zZz),
Chris

it's OK, i guessed you meant 2.6 and not 2.8..
another thing, when 2.6.11 will released, i will have to compile everything again? all the bootsplash patch and the kernel itself?
also which kernel folders can i safely delete from /usr/src and can i delete the .deb's?

thanks and have a good night ;)

Morning!

Erm, yes unfortunately. That's the safest thing to do anyway. Get the source from debian! Ah yes, if you try to get the pristine source (the one from www.kernel.org), you have to apply debian patches (for the cramfs). So just get the source from debian. Actually it's quite fun compiliing a kernel. You can copy the configuration file .config from the previous kernel directory to the new one so that you don't have to reconfigure the whole thing from scratch, but always do make xconfig (or menuconfig) to make sure you know what changes and whether they are important. And configuring a kernel is kinda fun! ;) I'm trying different configuration to see how slim my kernel can get... =)

I still can't get bootsplash installed, tell me if you can! =)

And, you can delete everything in that folder. You can do apt-get remove kernel-source-2.6.10 to remove the file kernel-source-2.6.10.tar.bz2. Then you can delete everything else. You may want to keep the .deb of the most recent kernel if you want and the most recent kernel-source directory (I guess keeping the file .config is basically what you need to do if you really want to delete everything ;)).

Okay, all the best for the next kernel! =)

Cheers!
Chris

hi, sorry it took me so long to answer, just tried bootsplash again but none, same error, hope it get fixed soon, can wait to see bootsplash in debian.

thanks for all your help and good night! (1:40 AM here in Israel...)

Had the same problem today, except using synaptic. Fixed it by unmarking everything (for you bootsplash-debian-wave) Then just apt-get bootsplash. It will then install bootsplash with the linux-new theme. Then you can apt-get whatever you want. Took me a while to get it to work, but finally got bootsplash installed.

just tried that, still not working, same error.

hi, is there any progress with bootsplash? is it working for you? still not working for me, same error like before.

Supposed to be true for 2.6.10 too. Hope this helps.

Yanik