initlogo.rle: display an image on boot

alansj · Nov 8, 2008

You can display a "splash" screen of sorts upon boot. You just have to have a file named initlogo.rle in your root directory. The trick is that the root directory is overwritten each time you boot with the contents of your boot image (mtd2). There are instructions elsewhere on the forums for updating this image.

You can prove to yourself that this works by just copying logo.rle to initlogo.rle in your updated boot image and you will see the "G1" screen twice.

The hurdle I'm running into is generating my own images. There is a program called to565 that takes in an image and spits out the resulting image in the appropriate format (give it the -r flag to generate an rle) [edit, correct flag is -rle]. However, everything I generate with this just looks like random colored bars when I boot up (and sometimes at the bottom of the screen I see part of whatever was left in the framebuffer when I shut down). Supposedly to565 takes in a raw rgb888 file, and perhaps I'm not generating those properly. I tried saving to "raw image" from gimp but so far everything is just different variations on colored bars.

I may give up at this point, but I thought others might be interesting in picking up where I left off.

JesusFreke · Nov 8, 2008

Huh. Interesting. I'll see if I can give it a whirl. Thanks for posting the info you've found so far

JesusFreke · Nov 8, 2008

I took a quick look at the source of that to565 program. It looks like you need to use -rle instead of just -r. Did you try that?

alansj · Nov 8, 2008

JesusFreke said:
I took a quick look at the source of that to565 program. It looks like you need to use -rle instead of just -r. Did you try that?

You sir, are correct! I just did it with -rle and it works.

alansj · Nov 8, 2008

How to create a boot image:
1. put a properly encoded initlogo.rle in root directory
2. insert this line in init.rc in the boot: section (optional, this disables the stock android boot animation)

Code:

setprop debug.sf.nobootanimation 1

3. wrap it all up and flash it to mtd2

Attached:
1. A boot image with these changes made. To try it on your phone, first back up your mtd2 image (the boot image). Type the following in a root shell to back it up to your sdcard:

Code:

cat /dev/mtd/mtd2 > /sdcard/mtd2.img

Then, unzip boot-rc29-customlogo.img.zip it and stick it on your sdcard and type the following in a root shell:

Code:

cat /dev/zero >> /dev/mtd/mtd2
flash_image boot /sdcard/boot-rc29-customlogo.img

(when you do the cat, it will tell you "write: No space left on device," which is fine)

To restore your original boot image, do the cat and then flash_image your mtd2.img backup.

2. Samples of the raw image as well as the rle encoded version.

3. A nifty photo of this working on my phone.

humble · Nov 8, 2008

WOW

awesome!! great job will test this out when i get back from the airport

humble · Nov 8, 2008

i couldn't wait

so i did it works perfectly. i just can't get rid of the first boot .img.(i see the instruction but i need further help) if this helps i have a vista 64 but, I'm also running VM to any operating system.

alansj · Nov 8, 2008

humble said:
i couldn't wait so i did it works perfectly. i just can't get rid of the first boot .img.(i see the instruction but i need further help) if this helps i have a vista 64 but, I'm also running VM to any operating system.

Yeah, actually I haven't found a way to get rid of the G1 logo on boot. If you change logo.rle on the root filesystem, it still shows that image. I'll post a longer guide to generating your own boot.img later tonight (although I posted a bunch of it in another thread already). You could always create your own boot.img and replace logo.rle to prove to yourself that it doesn't change that initial logo... but I've tried it. It must be somewhere else (including, perhaps, some on-phone memory that we can't access).

mack · Nov 8, 2008

hmmm so i've done this correctly since the boot image works...however i no longer have WIFI access. Does anyone knoe whats going on? under settings it keeps saying turning wifi ON... but it doesnt.

EDIT: So i reflashed the original backup img and now its fine. I wonder where i went wrong?

alansj · Nov 8, 2008

mack said:
hmmm so i've done this correctly since the boot image works...however i no longer have WIFI access. Does anyone knoe whats going on? under settings it keeps saying turning wifi ON... but it doesnt.

Did you use the boot.img I posted or one of your own? I'm not having any trouble with wifi, and I'm booted with that one. Do you see anything in dmesg about wifi?

Edit: also, it looks like JesusFreke had some issues with wifi not working when he was doing custom boot images. Dunno the details but maybe it's related.

humble · Nov 8, 2008

thanks alansj (sorry i miss read). and my wifi still works

mack · Nov 8, 2008

alansj said:
Did you use the boot.img I posted or one of your own? I'm not having any trouble with wifi, and I'm booted with that one. Do you see anything in dmesg about wifi?

Edit: also, it looks like JesusFreke had some issues with wifi not working when he was doing custom boot images. Dunno the details but maybe it's related.

I used your img that you posted with the hackdroid...LOVED it by the way =)

Could it be i'm on RC19 firmware? I'm reading jesusfreke's post but i'm fairly new to the linux thing so i'm having trouble understanding.

anyway i guess i'll just stick to stock until something new comes a long...

Thanks Alansj

alansj · Nov 9, 2008

mack said:
Could it be i'm on RC19 firmware?

Good guess. You could first apply the RC29 via sdcard and then flash the boot image.

To apply RC29, download this file, put it on your sdcard, name it update.zip, then reboot your phone while holding down power+home and when you get the recovery screen press alt+L then alt+s.

jriley60 · Nov 9, 2008

will this work with 30

alansj · Nov 9, 2008

jriley60 said:
will this work with 30

The general process will work, but the boot image I posted is based on rc29. The two things in the boot img are a kernel and a ramdisk (which includes a few of the basic system files). I don't think there was a kernel update in rc30, but I think there were updates to init.rc and possibly adbd (haven't checked). So, flashing with that boot.img I posted would undo the changes in those files done by rc30.

The better approach would be to take the boot.img from the full rc30 release, add your own initlogo.rle, and reflash from that.

I will now go and write a more detailed tutorial on how to edit boot.img

jriley60 · Nov 9, 2008

that would be awesome. Thank you!

UnkzDomain · Nov 9, 2008

Kinda off-topic, but where did you get the font that you used in the logo? I'd like to make my own, and I was wondering if I could use it...

alansj · Nov 9, 2008

amgupt01 said:
Kinda off-topic, but where did you get the font that you used in the logo? I'd like to make my own, and I was wondering if I could use it...

I just pixel-edited the logo from the android site (had to invent a couple of characters)... no font.

alansj · Nov 10, 2008

jriley60 said:
that would be awesome. Thank you!

I just posted it here

beartard · Nov 10, 2008

alansj said:
I just pixel-edited the logo from the android site (had to invent a couple of characters)... no font.

Good work, man! Someone is actually working on the android logo font here: http://androidcommunity.com/forums/f37/new-android-ttf-logo-font-ver-1-0-a-6537/#post68847

Just FYI.

initlogo.rle: display an image on boot

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