Extended help at boot

PaulBx1 complained yesterday:

Every available boot parameter should be documented, and the documentation should be available AT BOOT, not buried in some forum or wiki (that usual page we see at boot that has been there since 2.0 is a mere shadow of what should be done). One of my constant pet peeves about Puppy.

Yes, good point. I have extended the boot screens so that pressing the <F2> key gives basic help, <F3> gives advanced help. The space available in two screens is enough and I was able to put in all the boot options that the 'init' script will recognise.

The top of the basic help screen has a heading "Press the <F3> key for advanced help", while the advanced help screen has a heading "Press the <F2> for basic help", so you can see clearly how to flick between them.

This will be in the live-CD, also the Universal Installer sets up a USB drive installation with the same two help screens.

Note though, every boot parameter cannot be documented at boot. There are dozens that the kernel recognises. My help screens mention a couple of these, but mostly itemises those specific to the 'init' script.

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Comments

Power Save Options
Username: ChrisThomas
I was watching youtube and I made the Youtube full screen and watching and my monitor got shut down after some minutes I wish there was a simple app to configure the power options Regards

Yes, there are too many of those
Username: jamesbond
"Barry is right in saying that there are simply too many kernel parameters. If you wonder what they are, look here: http://kernel.org/doc/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt - this is the official Linux kernel boot parameters right from the source - Linux kernel team itself. I think documenting Puppy-specific parameters, as well as some others which are commonly used for troubleshooting, should be sufficient. Otherwise all it does to confuse even more.

good move
Username: dogle
"In the early days, the excellence of Puppy's built-in documentation was one thing (amongst many)which put Puppy way ahead. In more recent times, our newbie feedback indicates that difficulty in finding information is by far the No. 1 obstacle/turnoff factor for newcomers. So well said, PaulBx1 and thanks, Barry, very good move indeed.

Yay!
Username: PaulBx1
"Now that's service! :-) "Barry is right in saying that there are simply too many kernel parameters. If you wonder what they are, look here: http://kernel.org/doc/Documentation/kernel-parameters.txt" This is news to me. If these are actually available for use, perhaps a note at the bottom of the F3 page could point to this link (at least in text) so people could learn about them and play with them if they were having difficulty with some bit of hardware?

Link to more help
Username: BarryK
"Ok, done, the <F3> page has a message where full kernel boot params info can be found (the url provided by jamesbond).

Tags: woof