[Solved] Regarding boot screen image and brightness

[meet]

Hello,

I am using Porteus 4 with KDE.

I wish to:
1. Change the image of the Boot screen from that blue sky, house by the river scene to someone else. May be just a black screen.
2. Reduce the brightness of the boot screen (not the login screen or KDE desktop - the screen where it asks me to select graphic or fresh or text only different types of booting options).

Things I've tried for changing the background image:
- I replaced the image in Boot and EFI folder with the new image. File name same as the previous image.

I haven't tried anything for brightness.

Please help me with these two issues.
Thank you.


Solution:
A. About the brightness
- No solution found to change the brightness on the boot screen.
It will load with the maximum brightness that is available on your monitor. Bear with it till you find a solution.

B. About the background image
Solution by donald
- MENU BACKGROUND filename.extension works to select an image to set as background.
- Image has to be in the boot directory.
- Image has to be in the same resolution as your boot screen. Most used are 640x480.
- You can use MENU RESOLUTION to set a resolution for your boot screen. Again keep image in this same resolution.
- If not image, you can keep a solid color as background using the same MENU BACKGROUND option. Use color codes. #000000 or keep blank for black.

[Ed_P]

In the /boot/syslinux/porteus.cfg file you can change the background image by changing the 5th line: MENU BACKGROUND porteus.png to whatever image you want. Personally I love the water and house image.

As for colors the "menu color screen 37;40 #00000000 #00000000 none" line I suspect applies. Find out what the numbers mean and change to fit your taste.

Format is: MENU COLOR <Item> <ANSI Seq.> <foreground> <background> <shadow type>

Added in 4 hours 1 minute 2 seconds:
This link should help: https://wiki.syslinux.org/wiki/index.ph ... t/menu.c32

[meet]

In the /boot/syslinux/porteus.cfg file you can change the background image by changing the 5th line: MENU BACKGROUND porteus.png to whatever image you want. Personally I love the water and house image.

This would mean that the porteus.png file in the boot and efi folder will be shown as the background while booting right? If I change the MENU BACKGROUND to some other image name, I will also have to place that image in the boot or efi folder?

And if so, wouldn't replacing the porteus.png image with some other image, keeping the file name same work?

And what about the brightness? I want to change the image only because of the brightness. The boot screen starts with max brightness, and that spoils the blue water and house image (blue being too bright for me).

[Ed_P]

This would mean that the porteus.png file in the boot and efi folder will be shown as the background while booting right? If I change the MENU BACKGROUND to some other image name, I will also have to place that image in the boot or efi folder?

The same places you changed when you replaced the porteus.png image with yours.

And if so, wouldn't replacing the porteus.png image with some other image, keeping the file name same work?

You tried it, did it?

And what about the brightness? I want to change the image only because of the brightness. The boot screen starts with max brightness, and that spoils the blue water and house image (blue being too bright for me).

A lot of pcs have Function keys for controlling the screen's brightness, why don't you try using them on your pc? They work on my Cinnamon system.

[meet]

You tried it, did it?

Nope. It didn't work. I got a blank screen instead of the new image. Why did that happen?

Recently, I was going through the log and found this entry:

Code: Select all

Apr 15 15:24:16 porteus kernel: [    0.000000] Command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/syslinux/vmlinuz changes=/mnt/sdb1/save/save.dat i8042.nopnp initcall_blacklist=dw_i2c_init_driver initrd=/boot/syslinux/initrd.xz

I hope the BOOT_IMAGE is name for boot files and not background image. (#Newbie)

A lot of pcs have Function keys for controlling the screen's brightness, why don't you try using them on your pc? They work on my Cinnamon system.

No that doesn't work for me. I tried that before asking the question here. None of those special keys (fn+*) work till I boot in.

[Ed_P]

How long does your boot screen display before you select an option? I only see mine for seconds before I'm booting.

Did you try tinkering with the numbers in the ""menu color screen 37;40 #00000000 #00000000 none"" line? I could be wrong but I think the 40 may be brightness.

[meet]

How long does your boot screen display before you select an option? I only see mine for seconds before I'm booting.

Did you try tinkering with the numbers in the ""menu color screen 37;40 #00000000 #00000000 none"" line? I could be wrong but I think the 40 may be brightness.

I've the timeout disabled on the boot screen. I have added menu password to it.

And changing that 40 to something else didn't change the brightness.
Further, changing the image file name from porteus.png to other image also didn't work. It changes the screen to blank black.
Though that blank black is also good.

[Ed_P]

I'm confused. Why are you leaving the system at the boot screen rather than selecting an option, booting to it, then seeing the wallpaper of the system you chose? When I turn my system on or reboot I spend seconds seeing the boot screen.

[donald]

@meet
I encourage you to be a bit more self-reliant.
A search for "syslinux MENU BACKGROUND" would have been enough.

https://wiki.syslinux.org/wiki/index.ph ... RESOLUTION
https://wiki.syslinux.org/wiki/index.ph ... background

Check which resolutions the framebuffer supports.
Get / activate the hwinfo tool + libx86emu
Example:

Code: Select all

root@porteus:/home/guest# hwinfo --framebuffer
  Mode 0x0300: 640x400 (+640), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0301: 640x480 (+640), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0303: 800x600 (+800), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0305: 1024x768 (+1024), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0307: 1280x1024 (+1280), 8 bits
  Mode 0x030e: 320x200 (+640), 16 bits
  Mode 0x030f: 320x200 (+1280), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0311: 640x480 (+1280), 16 bits
  Mode 0x0312: 640x480 (+2560), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0314: 800x600 (+1600), 16 bits
  Mode 0x0315: 800x600 (+3200), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0317: 1024x768 (+2048), 16 bits
  Mode 0x0318: 1024x768 (+4096), 24 bits
  Mode 0x031a: 1280x1024 (+2560), 16 bits
  Mode 0x031b: 1280x1024 (+5120), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0330: 320x200 (+320), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0331: 320x400 (+320), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0332: 320x400 (+640), 16 bits
  Mode 0x0333: 320x400 (+1280), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0334: 320x240 (+320), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0335: 320x240 (+640), 16 bits
  Mode 0x0336: 320x240 (+1280), 24 bits
  Mode 0x033d: 640x400 (+1280), 16 bits
  Mode 0x033e: 640x400 (+2560), 24 bits
  Mode 0x0345: 1600x1200 (+1600), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0346: 1600x1200 (+3200), 16 bits
  Mode 0x0347: 1400x1050 (+1400), 8 bits
  Mode 0x0348: 1400x1050 (+2800), 16 bits
  Mode 0x0352: 2048x1536 (+8192), 24 bits

[Rava]

Recently, I was going through the log and found this entry:

Code: Select all

Apr 15 15:24:16 porteus kernel: [    0.000000] Command line: BOOT_IMAGE=/boot/syslinux/vmlinuz changes=/mnt/sdb1/save/save.dat i8042.nopnp initcall_blacklist=dw_i2c_init_driver initrd=/boot/syslinux/initrd.xz

I hope the BOOT_IMAGE is name for boot files and not background image. (#Newbie)

Which log exactly?

And vmlinuz is the Linux kernel!

Code: Select all

# file vmlinuz_Porteus_5.4.30_x86_64 
vmlinuz_Porteus_5.4.30_x86_64: Linux kernel x86 boot executable bzImage, version 5.4.30-porteus (root@porteus) #1 SMP Sat Apr 4 20:11:00 UTC 2020, RO-rootFS, swap_dev 0x4, Normal VGA

So, you better not mess with any entries about vmlinuz* or initrd* (initrd is the initial ram disk, also crucial for boot), unless you know very well what you are doing.
(Usually the worst that can happen is that your PC won't boot up, you can get an error message, or you can also get a blank screen with no error message at all.)

[meet]

I'm confused. Why are you leaving the system at the boot screen rather than selecting an option, booting to it, then seeing the wallpaper of the system you chose? When I turn my system on or reboot I spend seconds seeing the boot screen.

Well, I should have to explain my use or preferences. It should work like there's a need for a user which he couldn't solve on his own, and the forum helps him guide the best way they can.

The boot screen is too bright and the blue background hurts my eyes. Even if I stay there for hardly a minute, I do not wish to see that bright a screen.
As of now, even the blank black background works for me. I have set that.

@meet
I encourage you to be a bit more self-reliant.
A search for "syslinux MENU BACKGROUND" would have been enough.

Thank you donald. I will search the web before asking questions here from now.
The thing is that I usually do not know what to search. For in this case, I do not know what syslinux is and I wasn't aware that the background was handled through the MENU BACKGROUND setting in the config file. Forget about all the other thing you mentioned in the post, that directly bounces off my head. Still I try to understand what the helpful forum users tell me. I will try harder.

And vmlinuz is the Linux kernel!

Figured. Thanks.