projects::fbcondecor

fbcondecor stands for Framebuffer Console Decorations. It is a kernel patch that adds eye-candy by making it possible to display pictures in the background of system consoles. In order for the patch to work properly, a userspace helper application called fbcondecor_helper has to be installed. This application is currently provided as a part of fbsplash.

fbcondecor::download

At first, the features of both fbsplash and fbcondecor were provided by a single kernel patch called bootsplash (developed by Stefan Reinauer, Kenneth Wesley Wimer II, Michael Schroeder and Volker Poplawski). It was a solution which mostly worked just fine, but had a number of problems and limitations (JPEG decoder in the kernel, etc). In 2004, the gensplash project was created (by the author of this text, Michal Januszewski). It aimed at creating a sanitized version of bootsplash and moving as much code as possible to userspace.

As parts of this project, fbsplash and splashutils were developed. fbplash was a kernel patch that made it possible to display background pictures on the system consoles, and splashutils were a collection of programs for controlling fbsplash and for displaying the "silent" splash screen (image with a progress bar, icons, etc).

This naming scheme was problematic in two ways. First, fbsplash didn't actually have anything to do with the silent splash screen, as its name could have suggested. Second, many people were confused as to what was necessary to get the silent splash working and didn't realize they only needed the userspace part (splashutils) for this.

Thus, in August 2007, in the hope of making things more clear and easy to understand, the fbsplash patch was renamed to fbcondecor and the gensplash project took the name of fbsplash.

fbcondecor::troubleshooting

1. Fbcondecor and LVM2
2. I patched my kernel with fbsplash and I can't see any splash-related options in the configuration menu.

Fbcondecor and LVM2

If you're a LVM2 user and you're experiencing problems after patching your kernel with fbsplash, it's most likely caused by a broken initrd. Stephan Kochen faced the problem on his system. He identified its source and fixed it, and was nice enough to write a guide about creating LVM2 initrds that work with fbsplash. Have at look at http://g-lite.kochen.nl/proj/initrd/ if your LVM2 initrd doesn't seem to work with fbsplash.

I patched my kernel with fbcondecor and I can't see any new options in the configuration menu.

Please make sure that you have the "Framebuffer Console support" (FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE) option enabled and the "Enable Tile Blitting Support" (FB_TILEBLITTING) option disabled.