please improve the bootsplash artwork

Thanks for your comments. This bug report would be a bit more helpful, if you
had a proposal. Could you come up with an idea for it?

Sure, I'll clarify.

Check out these screenshots of (Open)SUSE 10. I have only tested an OpenSUSE
alpha for a day or two so I hope I'm correct on this:
OpenSUSE bootsplash theme =
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=464&slide=2
OpenSUSE login theme (KDM?) =
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=464&slide=21
OpenSUSE KDE splash screen =
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=464&slide=42

Analysis:

The bootsplash, login, and splash screen themes are very consistent. All of the
themes have blue in them, and the green chameleon logo. The transition between
respectivily the bootsplash, login and splashscreen is great, because they are
so consistent. You'd nearly think it is just one theme, not three, because they
are so consistent and the transition between them is done so nicely. To
symbolize the loading in the bootsplash and splashscreen themes, there are some
icons which are displayed, at a certain loading stage a certain icon flashes.
All of the themes are "high-res" (i.e. good image quality, not as pixelated as
Ubuntu's usplash theme) To better understand what I mean, maybe try OpenSUSE out
for yourself. The OpenSUSE artwork has a great style.

Compare to Ubuntu's theming. Bootsplash, GDM and splashscreen themes are NOT
consistent. Bootsplash theme has a black background, GDM theme has the light
brown Ubuntu background color, which fits better. The bootsplash theme is
pixelated, low res, I can nearly count the pixels. The bootsplash has a simple,
crude loading progress bar. It has the cryptic technobabble, like "Initializing
modules" and "Cleaning up ifupdown". Not stylish.

Suggestion:

Copy the OpenSUSE way of theming, but in the Ubuntu style. Make the bootsplash
theme high-res, not pixelated. Get rid of the technobabble and simple progress
bar (or give us a beefed up more elegant progress bar), instead display some
flashing icons or whatever to symbolize the loading process. Make the theming
consistent, make the difference between bootsplash, login and splashscreen as
small as possible, give them the same light brown background color and display
the same Ubuntu logo in all of them. The three themes should make a flawless
transition to each other, like in SUSE. Also notice that the KDE splashscreen in
OpenSUSE is screen filling. Do the same in Ubuntu, make a screen filling splash
screen. Right now you see the GNOME desktop after the login with a splash
screen, and you can see the desktop is still loading, not very nice to see (for
example, at my PC it takes a while before the solid background color on my
desktop is replaced with my wallpaper during loading, which is ugly), that's why
the splashscreen should be screen filling.

Thanks for your comment. The changes you are requesting require more discussion and should rather be done on an appropriate mailing list or forum. Like https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-art. Please reopen if you have more information at hand.

I'm not sure this bug must be closed as, indeed, improve the artwork is always a good idea.

The thing I'm dreaming about is a splash theme that would be completely like the gnome splashscreen so, when GDM is in autologin mode, you don't really notice the difference between Boot and Gnome start.

For the pixel issue, I might be wrong but I guess it's purely technical. I guess that Suse use the Linux Frame buffer, wich can have an high resolution but doesn't work everywhere. (for exemple, my graphic card cannot display any framebuffer on any distro).
Ubuntu use a more generic approach that works everywhere so far. The bad point is that we are stuck on a low resolution.

I don't think it's really a problem because it's only a splash screen after all. Most users cannot tell the difference between 800x600 and 1280x1024 on their own screen ! ("ah ? You changed the size of the fonts ? I prefer big fonts !") so having an high-res splash screen seems too geeky to put effort in.

Lionel, in the meanwhile I have sent an e-mail to the mailing list: https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-art/2006-April/001012.html

So far I have received three replies on my email to ubuntu-art of people who agree with me, but it seems that no one from the Ubuntu Art team has replied to my email. What is going to happen with this bug report if the Art team doesn't give my message attention?

I recently (April 2006 or May 2006) posted a message about this issue to the ubuntu-devel mailing list, and I was told that it's not possible to use a high resolution framebuffer because that would break compatibility with certain older hardware. Too bad, but we can probably manually install Upower - http://nanofreesoft.org/ - as a solution when that becomes available for Dapper.

Rejected? whishlist?
C'mon guys this is very important indeed, not a wishlist, Ubuntu is lagging far behind Suse and Fedora in this subject, it's something new users see the very first time they use Ubuntu, and in every single boot. Right now it's ugly, amateurish...

If it's an old hardware support of fb related problem, then how Suse resolves that? There are really so much old hardware with this problem? Isn't there any solution? Maybe automatic fall-back to non-fb? auto detection during Ubuntu installation, so normal systems could have a nice 1024x768 usplash and old systems go with the legacy one?

Just my 2 cents, but I think this is a very important subject

Quim - you're welcome to submit patches! There's work ongoing to improve
usplash, but unless you are able to contribute, please don't think that
your bugs are more important than everyone else's.

Mark

Mark, sure i'll contribute if I can, really I'm looking forward to what is going on for Edgy and Edgy+1, but please don't assume I think my bugs are more important than everyone else, as it's not in my message and wasn't the meaning of my comment...