From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Feb 27 09:55:52 2015 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher AECDH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 6197A27D for ; Fri, 27 Feb 2015 09:55:52 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mx01.qsc.de (mx01.qsc.de [213.148.129.14]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 1F623140 for ; Fri, 27 Feb 2015 09:55:51 +0000 (UTC) Received: from r56.edvax.de (port-92-195-131-196.dynamic.qsc.de [92.195.131.196]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx01.qsc.de (Postfix) with ESMTPS id C76893CD3E; Fri, 27 Feb 2015 10:55:48 +0100 (CET) Received: from r56.edvax.de (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by r56.edvax.de (8.14.5/8.14.5) with SMTP id t1R9tlnW002149; Fri, 27 Feb 2015 10:55:47 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from freebsd@edvax.de) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2015 10:55:47 +0100 From: Polytropon To: opendaddy@hushmail.com Subject: Re: Why all the fancy ASCII art in the boot loader? Message-Id: <20150227105547.d4884de7.freebsd@edvax.de> In-Reply-To: <20150227015057.4E2F3C0431@smtp.hushmail.com> References: <20150222164422.D89FCA0168@smtp.hushmail.com> <20150222175145.6b2cb583.freebsd@edvax.de> <20150227015057.4E2F3C0431@smtp.hushmail.com> Reply-To: Polytropon Organization: EDVAX X-Mailer: Sylpheed 3.1.1 (GTK+ 2.24.5; i386-portbld-freebsd8.2) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18-1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2015 09:55:52 -0000 On Fri, 27 Feb 2015 01:50:57 +0000, opendaddy@hushmail.com wrote: > That is all good, however, why does this stuff have to be there > in the first place? FreeBSD has some tradition in combining a dialog-based boot selection (with or without ACPI, into single-user mode, and so on) with ASCII art. The advantage is that it will show on serial lines or servers fine - most of them don't even have a graphics card or a monitor attached so fancy 3D graphics with HD sound effects would be useless. After all, it depends a lot on individual preference if this ASCII art makes the system more or less appealing to you, or if you're able to ignore it altogether. Many people believe in judging an operating system's quality from the colorfulness of the splash screen, the boot loader, or the installer; in their opinion, FreeBSD must be total crap. ;-) > Just seems a bit unprofessional that's all. As I said, it's easy to disable it if you don't like it. I would not say it's unprofessional, but it might be a valid opinion to say it's a bad default choice. However, FreeBSD _gives_ you the ability to make a choice how you want your boot prompt, splash screen, X login, desktop environment and applications. This, in my opinion, makes it _very_ professional compared to systems that force a given set of settings upon the user, and there is no way to make a different choice. -- Polytropon Magdeburg, Germany Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0 Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...