[arch-dev-public] Kernel framebuffer logo

[Thayer Williams]

Thursday 24 January 2008, Damir Perisa wrote:
> we ARE having the arch logo in the kernel replacing the linux 2.0 
> pinguin (i made it). so i'm not getting the point in discussing if we 
> want it or not. its just that somebody has to transform the new logo 
> to the kernel-usable formats and rebuild the kernel. quite easy if 
> you have the logo in good enough quality (or svg).
> 

My apologies Damir, I wasn't aware that a final decision had been made
yet.

My method for making the kernel logo:
  1. Extract a png from the svg sources
  2. Resize and optimize the colour depth with GIMP/Fireworks
  3. Use pngtopnm (after patching our netpbm package)
  4. Use pnmtoplainpnm to finish it off

I didn't realize there was so much passion behind the inclusion of a
framebuffer logo; it's on my screen for all of about 20 seconds.

I see a number of aesthetic problems with using such a logo, and they
are as follows:

  1. Limited use of colour makes it less than ideal for 'fancy graphics'
  2. Users must customize their fb to be widescreen and like someone
  else pointed out, 1680x1050 and other widescreen resolutions are not
  supported even when customized.  
  3. The icon is fairly small and limiting in its scope
  
Bootsplashes such as splashy, suffer from the same distortion problem
unless fine-tuned. This means that out-of-the-box there's a potential
that it will look 'fugly' or unprofessional at best. To counter this, I
created a logo-less splashy theme that used a simple progress bar--it
looks fine in any resolution.

I agree that having the logo appear in the fb is a good idea--in theory
at least--I only wish it could be done better.  For example, it might be great to
have the full logo (with text) appear at the top of the screen, but at
the size we're dealing with that wouldn't be practical--it'd also look
silly for us dual cpu/core owners to have two logos mirrored side by side.

In my opinion, there are better ways to brand the distro; whether
through the use of GDM/KDM/SLiM themes, wallpapers, or even desktop
icons. 

I'm not going to lose any sleep about it either way...I just thought I'd
share my take if it was still being decided--which apparently it isn't
=)

If anybody wants to have a go with the white logo, you can grab the ppm
version here:

http://dev.archlinux.org/~thayer/art/logo_linux_clut224.ppm