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Is there any way to tidy up the boot process output in Debian?

Asked by [ Editor ] , Edited by Gerfried Fuchs [ Editor ]

I’ve noticed that the text mode boot process on some distributions produce very neat output, something like:


* Starting service X … [ OK ]
* Starting service Y … [ FAIL ]
* Starting service Z … [ OK ]

I don’t know if they do it by using different init daemons, or by crafting init scripts that produce that kind of output. Is there any way of having the same kind of output during the Debian boot process without having to modify every init script? I guess that the answer is probably “no”, but I ask anyway in case I’m wrong.

Please note that I appreciate and understand why the Debian boot process works the way it does. However, there are specific cases (installations targeted at non-technical users) where it would be nice to have a cleaner output. I’m not looking to hide the boot process (bootsplash), just to make it easier to follow and read. 
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1 answer

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fladi

I think the solution can be found in this blog post by Jonathan McDowell. I use it on my machines to easily identify services that failed on boot.

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alexander
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Hi, thanks a lot for your answer. That’s exactly what I was looking for, and after adapting it a bit for Squeeze, it seems to work flawlessly.

gouch
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I’m using wheezy ATM, are there any adaptations you made that would be helpful for me to know before I try the script? I used to run RedHat from 6 to 8 & I remember that boot style as being a good thing

alexander
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Basically I merged the changes proposed in the article into /lib/lsb/init-functions. Then I built a custom package, which provides a new init-functions script, diverting from the real one (obviously this last step is not necessary, but it can be useful if you’re planning to do the same thing on a big number of machines). Since the delta between Squeeze and Wheezy is still relatively small, I think my approach should work for now. A fair warning: the boot output won’t be as pretty as the one offered by RedHat and other distributions. This is mainly because there seems to be some init scripts that were crafted poorly, and will mess with the output no matter what (or they won’t call the functions present in /lib/lsb/init-functions). So YMMV, but applying the patch definitely makes the boot process looks nicer.

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