Silence the bootloader about iso HOT 8 CLOSED

Possibly try to set this from a Linux system in the meantime?

from iso.

When booting with Clover and handing over console=noconsole as an argument, it still prints Consoles: EFI console and a spinner for a short time but otherwise prints no text. A little bit of progress...

from iso.

Consider using the Clover bootloader:

Zero-text boot can be achieved by using Clover and this config.plist (in this example, the EFI System Partition has been created by the helloSystem installer and has the label EFISYS. But only if Type is set to OSX. Apparently this makes Clover to try graphics mode.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
   <dict>
      <key>Boot</key>
      <dict>
         <key>Timeout</key>
         <string>0</string>
         <key>DefaultVolume</key>
         <string>EFISYS</string>
      </dict>
      <key>GUI</key>
      <dict>
         <key>TextOnly</key>
         <false />
         <key>Custom</key>
         <dict>
            <key>Entries</key>
            <array>
               <dict>
                  <key>Disabled</key>
                  <false />
                  <key>Hidden</key>
                  <false />
                  <key>Ignore</key>
                  <false />
                  <key>Path</key>
                  <string>\EFI\boot\BOOTx64.efi</string>
                  <key>Arguments</key>
                  <string>console=nullconsole</string>
                  <key>Title</key>
                  <string>FreeBSD from ESP</string>
                  <key>Type</key>
                  <string>OSX</string>
               </dict>
            </array>
         </dict>
      </dict>
   </dict>
</plist>

This has the following advantages:

• Zero text
• FreeBSD logo in correct resolution
• Nice graphical boot volume selector when pressing e.g., Backspace before Clover loads
• Can we configure it so that if the V key is held down we boot in verbose mode?

Disadvantages:

• Loading Clover adds ~3 seconds to the boot process
• Adds complexity
• Not so easy to interrupt the FreeBSD bootloader anymore?
• On non-EFI systems, one must load EFI first which Clover can do but adds even more time and complexity to the boot process

from iso.

IIRC there's an old FreeBSD bug for part of this.

Hint: silence as a default can make it more difficult to get feedback from testers …

from iso.

Hint: silence as a default can make it more difficult to get feedback from testers …

In case of boot issues, one can always unset boot_mute.

Ideally I would want to have it so that one can just hold down the "v" key during boot for "verbose". But by default, what I consider "debug" messages for developers should be hidden from "mere mortals" view. Doable in Forth/Lua?

from iso.

Is GNU GrUB Unwelcome technologies?

from iso.

Well, it's GNU. Whereas we want to stay close to FreeBSD as much as possible, certainly for such essential components.

from iso.

Doing some trickery in local.lua, "almost" does the trick. Silences the bootloader from the point in time at which it is running.

Can't silence the earlier stages though. I think it is fine for now.

from iso.