from Matthew's Apples
by Matthew Frederick Davis Hemming
December 2001

Verbose Booting
Boot Image Modification

Just about every Macuser worth their salt has, by now, made the switch over to the Fully Modern Operating System Formerly Known as Copeland (a.k.a. MacOS X). Even those with software or hardware conflicts that keep them working day to day in Classic (like a Media100 editing system) can't help but steal into OSX for forays of exploration/appreciation that get longer and longer as time goes by. Ultimately, it becomes painful to reboot into native Classic mode at all.

Eventually there will be tips, troubleshooting reports, links and shell scripts here. For now, here's a quick tip for enabling verbose booting on your OSX Mac. The only knowledge you need is: how to find/launch Terminal.app, how to use a command-line editor like Pico or vi. Also: you can learn how to cut down on the amount of free billboard space you provide to Apple by modifying the Jaguar boot image icon.


* Verbose Booting
If you're interested in what your Mac is actually doing while booting up, you now have the option to read the ConsoleMessages displayed by the individual startup scripts as they run. To activate verbose booting, issue the command nvram boot-args="-v" with root authority. Your Mac will display ConsoleMessages during boot until you issue the command nvram boot-args="", boot back from native Classic mode, or update your system software. If you want to it down so it always boots verbosely, append the "-v" version of the command to the end of your /etc/rc. It should say something like this:

# Setting verbose option for next reboot.
#
nvram boot-args="-v"
ConsoleMessage "Verbose booting engaged."
#


* Boot Image Modification
Ryan Schmidt has come up with a way to cut down on the amount of free billboard space we provide to Apple, by modifying the Jaguar boot image from a grey Apple silhouette to whatever you like. You can even restore the original "happy mac" icon if that's your druthers. For more information see this ResExcellence tutorial or visit Ryan's JagBoot page. If you want to create your own image you'll need HexEdit. If you don't roll your own, a library of free boot images can be browsed here, and installed with the help of Ryan's handy Startup Syringe utility.


That's all for now.