KSplash BGRT

A little side project I just published is a KSplash theme (the loading screen while logging into a Plasma session) that uses BGRT, the ACPI Boot Graphics Record Table. Basically: a KSplash theme that displays the vendor logo that also your UEFI shows during the boot process.

I’ve always been looking for a seamless startup experience, back then playing around with various Plymouth themes, login manager themes, KWin effects, and so on. Say what you will about Windows 8 but ever since its release pretty much every x86 desktop system out there boots up with a black screen and a vendor logo in the middle. Many Linux distributions also ship a BGRT Plymouth theme (the boot splash). Fedora if I recall correctly have also been pioneering a flicker-free boot effort. It included various changes to the Linux kernel, drivers, and other parts of the graphics stack to keep the console from briefly showing up or inadvertently clearing the frame buffer anywhere during the boot process and so on.

This KSplash theme is forked off from the upstream Plasma splash screen, including “Plasma by KDE” tagline, but the Plasma logo was replaced by the logo acquired from BGRT. It obviously is mostly meant for systems configured to automatically login. Right now, KWin Wayland starts rendering as soon as it’s ready which typically results in a couple of black frames with a mouse cursor before KSplash is actually up, breaking the illusion. Nevertheless, I wanted to publish this project for posterity for anyone who might find it useful. :) Since it contains C++ to interact with BGRT, it unfortunately cannot just be published on the KDE Store. It is, however, designed with the prospect of becoming an official part of Plasma in mind, should we want this.