How to add custom loading screen?

Question

I would like to make Raspberry PI useful for TV purpose or so... Therefore I would like to show to end user loading image before entering the X-Windows and starting customized desktop...

So instead of watching kernel loading modules I would like to switch this with GIF image or something...

Where is the best place to start to achieve this?

Answer 1

Custom Splash Screen for Raspberry Pi (Raspbian)

This is a quick and dirty solution for an unanimated custom splash screen during boot.

First of all, you need to install fbi:

apt-get install fbi

Copy your custom splash image to /etc/ and name it "splash.png".

Next, create an init.d script called "asplashscreen" in "/etc/init.d/".

I chose "asplashscreen" with an "a" at the beginning to be sure it starts first.

#! /bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides:          asplashscreen
# Required-Start:
# Required-Stop:
# Should-Start:      
# Default-Start:     S
# Default-Stop:
# Short-Description: Show custom splashscreen
# Description:       Show custom splashscreen
### END INIT INFO


do_start () {

    /usr/bin/fbi -T 1 -noverbose -a /etc/splash.png    
    exit 0
}

case "$1" in
  start|"")
    do_start
    ;;
  restart|reload|force-reload)
    echo "Error: argument '$1' not supported" >&2
    exit 3
    ;;
  stop)
    # No-op
    ;;
  status)
    exit 0
    ;;
  *)
    echo "Usage: asplashscreen [start|stop]" >&2
    exit 3
    ;;
esac

:

Then make that script executable and install it for init mode rcS:

chmod a+x /etc/init.d/asplashscreen

insserv /etc/init.d/asplashscreen

Reboot and watch your custom splash screen:

reboot

Answer 2

You can take a look at Splashy for creating a custom loading (splash) screen.

I can't see it on the list of official packages, so you would have to compile it from source. It is available via git from here.

You should be able to check out the source and build like this:

git clone https://anonscm.debian.org/git/splashy/splashy.git
cd splashy
./configure
make && sudo make install

Hopefully that will build, at first glance I can't see any problem with it. You can then follow the README provided with the source code (or online here) for the installation configuration procedure.