Typically when a FreeBSD system boots, it displays its progress as a series of messages at the console. A boot splash screen creates an alternate boot screen that hides all of the boot probe and service startup messages. A few boot loader messages, including the boot options menu and a timed wait countdown prompt, are displayed at boot time, even when the splash screen is enabled. The display of the splash screen can be turned off by hitting any key on the keyboard during the boot process.
There are two basic environments available in FreeBSD. The first is the default legacy virtual console command line environment. After the system finishes booting, a console login prompt is presented. The second environment is a configured graphical environment. Refer to Chapter 5, The X Window System for more information on how to install and configure a graphical display manager and a graphical login manager.
Once the system has booted, the splash screen defaults to
being a screen saver. After a time period of non-use, the
splash screen will display and will cycle through steps of
changing intensity of the image, from bright to very dark and
over again. The configuration of the splash screen saver can be
overridden by adding a saver=
line to
/etc/rc.conf
. Several built-in screen
savers are available and described in splash(4). The
saver=
option only applies to virtual
consoles and has no effect on graphical display managers.
By installing the
sysutils/bsd-splash-changer package or port,
a random splash image from a collection will display at boot.
The splash screen function supports 256-colors in the
bitmap (.bmp
), ZSoft
PCX (.pcx
), or
TheDraw (.bin
) formats. The
.bmp
, .pcx
, or
.bin
image has to be placed on the root
partition, for example in /boot
. The
splash image files must have a resolution of 320 by 200 pixels
or less in order to work on standard VGA
adapters. For the default boot display resolution of 256-colors
and 320 by 200 pixels or less, add the following lines to
/boot/loader.conf
. Replace
splash.bmp
with the name of the
bitmap file to use:
splash_bmp_load="YES"
bitmap_load="YES"
bitmap_name="/boot/splash.bmp
"
To use a PCX file instead of a bitmap file:
splash_pcx_load="YES"
bitmap_load="YES"
bitmap_name="/boot/splash.pcx
"
To instead use ASCII art in the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TheDraw format:
splash_txt="YES"
bitmap_load="YES"
bitmap_name="/boot/splash.bin
"
Other interesting loader.conf
options
include:
beastie_disable="YES"
This will stop the boot options menu from being displayed, but the timed wait count down prompt will still be present. Even with the display of the boot options menu disabled, entering an option selection at the timed wait count down prompt will enact the corresponding boot option.
loader_logo="beastie"
This will replace the default words “FreeBSD”, which are displayed to the right of the boot options menu, with the colored beastie logo.
For more information, refer to splash(4), loader.conf(5), and vga(4).
All FreeBSD documents are available for download at https://download.freebsd.org/ftp/doc/
Questions that are not answered by the
documentation may be
sent to <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org>.
Send questions about this document to <freebsd-doc@FreeBSD.org>.