|
|
||
Slackware 10.0 and rc.d Scripts—Day 22© Copyright Darrell Anderson. An area where I spent some “productive” time was adding color to the informational screen messages generated in the various Slackware startup scripts. I am spoiled with the clean boot messages provided by the Mandrake developers. I noticed the VectorLinux programmers are using the Mandrake idea, which I think originated with Red Hat. I wish the Slackware people did something similar. In the mean time I added some simple escape codes to add color to specific messages of the scripts. I basically understand what the VectorLinux people did, but I am not ready for too much complication right now. Thus, direct editing seems the best option momentarily. No, my boot screen does not look like the Knoppix rainbow, but some occasional color coding does provide helpful visual feedback about the boot process. My challenge now is not losing those color modifications if I have to reinstall Slackware or perform updates. My color scheme is simple:
Other messages provided by the kernel or called programs remain in standard non-bold white (almost gray on most screens). Nonetheless, this simple touch provides me a more pleasing boot environment. I hope the Slackware maintainer takes notice of my simple change. I also learned how to beautify /etc/issue, which contains the run level 3 login greeting. I downloaded a script that can update this file on-the-fly, but I have not yet tried to fine-tune the script for my system. One thing that puzzles me however, is if I experience fat fingers while trying to login, the immediate subsequent login message generated from /etc/issue is filled with the actual variables and not the substituted variable text. I don’t know what causes this. The message looks strange displaying “/r” and “/l.” My pursuit of error messages is hardly finished, however. Some error problems are KDE related. Whenever I launch Kate from the Konqueror file manager, I receive error messages in my .xsession-errors. If I select the logout button but end my GUI session before that silly gray shading finishes, I receive error messages in .xsession-errors. I suspect the KDE developers don’t use “slow” machines to notice this kind of thing. For some other KDE related errors I changed the KDE sound system to Open Sound System (OSS) rather than Autodetect. This seemed to reduce a bunch of .xsession-errors messages. Another sound related problem was at one time my sound stopped. I don’t know what I did, but troubleshooting led me to rebuild my .knotifyrc file. I discovered a discussion thread that seemed to affirm this odd bug with KDE. Finis. |
||