Animated splash screens for LILO

Introduction

Since mid-2001, most Linux distributions include some patched versions of LILO (the LInux LOader) that support VGA or VESA graphical modes and make it possible to have a nice background image while booting. Starting with SuSE Linux 7.2, the SuSE distribution includes an interesting extension to LILO that allows a programmer to define some callback functions that are triggered when some events occur (key pressed, timeout, ...). It gives a much greater flexibility than the other extensions that are provided by most of the other Linux distributions, including the new graphical modes that have recently been added to the official version of LILO 22.x.

While testing the SuSE version of LILO and the helper program mkbootmsg, I was wondering if the timer callbacks together with the function that copies parts of the image to the screen could be used for creating animations. I quickly found out that it was indeed possible to enhance the boot screen with animations. Since my friends liked the results, I decided to share them on this web site.

These animated boot screens have been tested with SuSE Linux 7.2 and 7.3. They should also work with other Linux distributions, as long as you install the appropriate version of LILO. This is explained on my help page.

Why?

Several people told me that LILO was not designed to do this kind of things and asked me why I did this. So here are some reasons: because LILO was not designed to do this kind of things, because it is fun, because some people like to waste their time looking at pretty animations when their computer is booting.

Of course, these boot screens will not be so useful for those who keep their Linux server running for several months without rebooting (some of my servers have been running for more than a year). But these animations were not designed for these servers: they are more interesting for desktop computers that are rebooted from time to time. I created the first boot screens for a laptop that I boot and shut down at least once a day.

Animated boot screens

Click on one of these images to go to a separate page from which you can download the file to use with LILO as well as all source files.

	xray-green 640x480, 256 colors (VESA) Animations: - progress bar (timeout) - hard disk motor - two flashing lights
	xray-blue 640x480, 256 colors (VESA) Animations: - progress bar (timeout) - hard disk motor - two flashing lights - rotating fan
	penguins 640x480, 256 colors (VESA) Animations: - walking penguin at the bottom of the screen - walking X-Mas penguin on top of the menu - falling penguin (tumbler) for the LILO timeout Special keys: F1, F2, F3 influence the penguins
	breakout 640x480, 256 colors (VESA) This is a full, playable game, not a simple animation. Special keys: - F1 for help - F2 starts a game - Shift and Ctrl control the bat

Other animated boot screens can be found on my LILO links page.

Copyright

I am releasing these animated boot screens under the GNU General Public License (GPL), version 2 or later (at your option).

This means that you are allowed to use, modify, copy and distribute them freely. You can even sell your own version if you want. But if you distribute them to others, then you must also distribute the source code for these boot screens. In this case, the "source code" ("the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it") means the configuration file(s) and the source of the image(s), including all layers and masks if applicable. It should be possible for those who get the source code to modify the animation easily, so distributing only the final PCX image is usually not sufficient because that would not be the the preferred form for making modifications to the image (unless you worked only on that bitmap file and painted it pixel by pixel, but then I pity you).

For more details, see the full text of the GPL (also available in HTML version from www.gnu.org).

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