README

dietsplash
**********

Simple bootsplash that aims to adhere to the KISS philosophy. It's possible to
put a background and simple animations are on the way to be supported. Since
bootsplashes are most likely to be done by distro maintainers and are not
meant to be easily changed by user, dietsplash is developed without scripting
and lots of configurations like others. Its configurations are almost all done
during compile time, including custom animations.

That said, dietsplash is targeted as a small bootsplash to be used in embedded
systems but that can also be used on desktop. We keep it small and with not
extra dependencies so all our precious I/O time can be used to actually boot
faster.


Compilation and installation
============================

There are no external dependencies for compiling dietsplash. It accepts some
configuration values that you might want to check with:

	./configure -h

For the simplest case, in which images are bundled into the final binary, you
can simply run:

	./configure
	make
	make install

This will install 2 binaries, dietsplash and dietsplashctl. The easiest way to
have dietsplash up and running on your system (without even requiring an initrd
image) is to use it as an init wrapper.

All you have to do is to install dietsplash and append 'init=/bin/dietsplash'
to your kernel command line. During compilation dietsplash will detect the real
init used on system pass the correct.

Kernel Dependencies
===================

dietsplash can run with any kernel version, but it's good to have DEVTMPFS
compiled in the kernel since we need to write to /dev/ even before the root
partition is made RW.


HACKING
=======

When hacking, you can pass the option '--enable-maintainer-mode' (or using the
provided ./bootstrap-configure script) so you can test your changes without
rebooting. Don't install dietsplash with this flag enabled, otherwise you won't
be able to boot.