Display tips / facts during plymouth boot splash

[rapenne-s]

The problem you're addressing (if any)

Qubes OS is a complicated OS and the boot time can be quite long, why not use it to display random tips about it?

This appeared in video games during load screens 20 years ago, and I always thought it was a smart way to turn a boring moment into something that can be interesting (before it starts repeating and it is not new to the user). Why not use the same mechanism on Qubes OS?

The solution you'd like

After typing the luks passphrase (if any), during the boot time until lightdm is shown, the splash screen could display a random line from a text file containing tips.

The value to a user, and who that user might be

They might learn something about Qubes OS usage while starring at the void of their loading screen. I might be useful to people who do not know all the features of Qubes OS (I think we are plenty).

Ideas

Here is a quick list of ideas that could be expanded into compact and insightful sentences. The community will be involved through the forum if the idea looks good to the developers

• Qubes OS keep a revision of volumes which can be reverted
• Firewall rules are applied on the qube netvm, not in the qube itself
• You can change the copy/paste keybindings
• Templates VMs should stay offline, they have a qrexec proxy to fetch packages
• Inbound networking is blocked by default on each qube
• Do not forget to make backups
• ....

Challenges

Tips should stay in sync with reality, although this kind of tips/facts should not change very often.

[lubellier]

It's a very good idea from my point of view. I think about the work to do. Did someone already see this kind of messages with a Linux distribution during the boot process? May be on the side of the game/video oriented distributions (SteamOS, openElec, ...).

[unman]

Not at boot, but certainly at initial startup, it's quite common to see hints and advice on new features.

[rapenne-s]

It's a very good idea from my point of view. I think about the work to do. Did someone already see this kind of messages with a Linux distribution during the boot process? May be on the side of the game/video oriented distributions (SteamOS, openElec, ...).

I'm not aware of this actually, SteamOS shows an animated splash screen but it only last a few seconds because it boots fast.

Not at boot, but certainly at initial startup, it's quite common to see hints and advice on new features.

I think I've seen a contributor's work doing exactly this, a simple GUI displayed at boot helping new users to figure how to use qubes os.

I do not think both ideas are exclusive, IMO the boot time is boring and adding a simple sentence here should not be much work and should be harmless, while making this step less boring to users.