GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 546409
splash is no longer enabled
Last modified: 2009-07-27 12:07:15 UTC
Starting with 2.23.6, gnome-session splash is no longer enabled by default. This is problematic on slow systems where notification is needed until desktop is ready to use.
Yes, it is now disabled by default. I guess it would make sense to add some code that only shows the splash if login is taking more than a certain amount of time. However, I don't think that we should have it enabled unconditionally.
I'm going to close this but feel free to open a new bug about adding a feature that shows the splash if login is taking more than a certain amount of time.
I don't agree with you. You have caused a regression for many systems and adding a new feature to try to workaround it (since there is no way for the first time you login to know if the login splash is needed or not, so you will end up in showing it too late) is not the way to go. I compare that to hiding the dust under the carpet. I'd like to have opinions from gnome-session co-maintainers.
You are welcome to disagree. If you want to enable the splash for your distro - go for it. As for the new feature, it is certainly possible to know if the login taking too long - even the first time.
(In reply to comment #0) > Starting with 2.23.6, gnome-session splash is no longer enabled by default. > > This is problematic on slow systems where notification is needed until desktop > is ready to use. Login takes 5 to 10 seconds on a freshly installed system here until things are ready. As it's a new installation the system partition is still not fragmented - login takes longer over time as linux filesystems do not have defragmenting support yet. The system in question is a top of the line dual core Penryn - I don't exactly consider that a slow system. Yet a splash screen is highly desirable if it takes more than 5 seconds. (In reply to comment #4) > You are welcome to disagree. If you want to enable the splash for your distro > - go for it. Gentoo will most likely join in on that. There is absolutely no valid explanation, that I can see, of why this feature and important user feedback showing method is being disabled by default now. > As for the new feature, it is certainly possible to know if the login taking > too long - even the first time. That is not a new feature. That is an improvement on top of a feature that appears to have removed completely in 2.23 - in making it simply not fade in or show up before a few seconds have passed without login having finished yet. If your agenda is to not show the splash screen, then it should be simply put in a timer, not removed completely (by default). That is not a new feature. That is an improvement of an existing feature, accomplishing what your goal is without regressing anything for anyone. The bug title can be adjusted to reflect that if you disagree with the current one, instead of requiring us to copy paste all of this information to a new bug and making comments less readable. I personally consider this regression a 2.24 blocker for my distribution as well.
The splash is disabled by default. This is not a regression. If you want to show the splash for your distribution - go for it. If you want to improve it - go for it. Personally, I'd rather see you spend your time making login faster.
I consider this as a regression. If the login code was already faster and you would have worked on that I could understand why you had removed the splash screen.
(In reply to comment #6) > The splash is disabled by default. This is not a regression. In "out of the box" GNOME-2.22 users had an idea and progress update on what was going on when the startup was slow, and not being left alone in frustration. This is not the case anymore, therefore this is a regression by the best definition of the word until fixed. > If you want to > show the splash for your distribution - go for it. If you want to improve it - > go for it. Personally, I'd rather see you spend your time making login faster. I do intend to work on that. Until that is not done to satisfactory extent, it is not appropriate to stop showing the splash screen on slow logins, where "slow" is a relative thing, that in GNOME-2.22 used to be pretty close to a normal understanding "not in an instant" in 2.22, but now it never appears. It could be considered "slow" only when 3, 5 or 10 seconds have passed without the login being finished - that makes lots of sense. Not showing it even if login takes 30 seconds does not make sense and is a regression from before. And even when login is quick on computers you have access to in the future, it isn't on others, and a on timer appearing splash being enabled by default is still good, as you can never predict how quickly unknown computers in unknown conditions will boot up. Currently I just booted from cold boot again on a 2.5GHz core 2 duo and it took 9 seconds. Good that I have 2.22 on that one still and saw a splash screen, unlike in a different operating system and desktop environment where it simply is completely sluggish and unusable for half a minute without any feedback of the fact. Retitling for describing what ideally would be done after re-enabling the splash by default and reopening...
The splash should not be enabled by default. If you want to improve the splash please open a new bug - do not hijack this one. If you want the splash do it in your distro.
Please explain why it should not be enabled by default.
So, Jon, I disagree with your approach here. I can understand why we want to not show the splash screen, but we have to deal with systems where it's useful feedback. IMHO, we should show the splash screen unless we know the login is fast (instead of hide the splash screen unless we know the login is slow as you proposed in comment #2). (btw, it sounds weird to say to two distros "do it in your distro" -- this generally means something is wrong)
Could we instead optionally convert the splash into something useful? Like hide all the windows and fade it out once the mouse is clicked or session tells us startup is complete? Then it would make sense to show it to everyone for a nice transition (GDM → splash → working desktop). I agree with vuntz, there is no point in having an upstream package that every distro chooses to patch.
Maybe simply a progress bar would be enough
Since several people seem to want a rationale for the change to remove the splash screen, and the bug log doesn't seem to include one, perhaps I could help by offering one. Splash screens take time to load and display. Presenting a splash screen will slow down login by some measurable amount of time. Better to simply have login take so little time that nobody notices; that certainly holds true on all the systems I use. For a related justification, see http://lwn.net/Articles/299483/ , and in particular the quote "We hate splash screens. By the time you see it, we want to be done." Thus, the bug report "splash is no longer enabled" does not represent a bug; it represents an intentional change made to speed up the startup process. If you want to add some new functionality to set a timer and show a splash screen if the timer expires before login completes, it sounds like you should file that as a separate bug. Meanwhile, this bug should probably get WONTFIXed; I'll leave that to the gnome-session developers.
FWIW, the splash screen had been reenabled by default in the meantime. It's now disabled again, but there's a --enable-splash configure option. Let's just close the bug.