[ge-talk] Get login details while booting.

[Truls Becken]

>> If the OS takes 10 seconds to boot fully, but the login screen is
up in 5 seconds then the user will feel it is a 5 second boot.
>
> I agree.

This is completely in line with what I said in the last part of my
response. By taking the traditional approach, but at the same time
doing as much of the work as possible in background while the login
panel is present, the perceived boot time will be quite impressive.

The original suggestion, however, was somewhat more innovative. Mat
mentioned a login box at the boot screen and reading name/password
before even bringing up the boot fs. This means that the user
interface would be part of the kernel, which should also mean that you
can start typing with no delay whatsoever.

Technical issues aside, how would one make this work in practice? At
some point, the boot screen will be replaced by a higher resolution
app_server based interface. How would the transition affect the user
experience? Would it cut the user off after 5 seconds, or whatever
that part of the boot sequence is? Would the boot screen stay until a
successful login was performed, and should multiple attempts be
allowed? If so, would a different login panel be presented when the
user logs out again later?

Here is my attempt to answer my own line of questions:

Once the user has started typing, the boot screen will stay until he
has entered both a name and password. When the user has done his part,
the input will be fed to a non-interactive login program. This program
waits for whatever facilities are needed to check the credentials.
Then, if the login failed, it simply exits and you're back to a second
attempt at the kernel mode login prompt. If the login was successful,
the program waits for app_server so it can fire up the desktop. In the
event that the user has not yet touched the keyboard when app_server
comes up, the boot screen is replaced by the full glory login panel.
It doesn't matter if this is before or after the first attempt,
meaning you can make two failed attempts and pause to rethink,
resulting in the full login panel coming up for the third attempt.
This login panel would probably feed its input to the same login
program as mentioned before, or they could be the same binary, which
would then have two different modes of operation.