Mac OS X Startup

[Phirax]

Just curious as I haven't used a Mac since Mac OS 8, but when you start/boot Mac OS X does it display the kernel loading as text like most Unix systems or is it graphical from the start like the older Mac OS's?

Hopefully soon I will buy an Apple system..

 

[aus_dave]

I don't reboot very often but from memory it is a basic graphic 'splash' screen with a line of text in the middle that updates during the boot process (e.g. Apache starting etc.).

 

[p-unit]

It is completely graphical. You don't see any Unix techno-jargon on startup. It's very similar to OS9, but updated of course.

I hope that helps.

 

[Phirax]

Cheers, for that guys.. Oh sorry one more question, what about hardware posts from the bios, or is it straight into loading the OS?

 

[FredAkbar]

There's nothing text-based at all. Like p-unit said, it's completely graphical. When you turn it on, the first thing that shows up is a grey screen with a darker-grey apple logo in the middle. After 30 seconds or whatever of that, it goes to a blue background with an aqua window-ish thing, with a progress bar and notes like "Starting printing services" and "Establishing network" or whatever. But if you start up in single user mode (hold Command-S at startup), it's all text-based Unix stuff the whole way like you were asking about. But that makes sense, since single user mode is just a command-line console anyway, no GUI.

edit: I posted, then went to edit my post to add the stuff about what it looks like specifically. While I was doing that, the people below me posted. Sorry about the redundancy.

 

[upperblue79]

when it comes on it chimes, then it shows a white screen with a grey apple in the middle. then comes a blue screen that shows a dialog box with an apple in it and says "loading network" and such then goes to desktop.

 

[HexMonkey]

Screenshots of Panther starting up are available here.

 

[Phirax]

Ahh ok cool.. Thanx all..

 

[bviz2]

For the Unix geeks out there, there is a way to see the boot messages by holding down <cmd>-V immediately after pressing the power button to boot the system.

See http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106388.

I switched to a Mac a couple of years ago. As a person who has been using Unix since ~1989 I was extremely happy to find a consumer implementation that supported many of the apps I wanted. I have never regretted it.

 

[MacFan26]

I believe there's a way to set it so that it shows up like command-v every time you startup, but I can't remember where to do that. There should be a simple way to change it back and forth.

 

[JFreak]

I believe there's a way to set it so that it shows up like command-v every time you startup, but I can't remember where to do that. There should be a simple way to change it back and forth.

cocktail can do it via gui, that's the easiest. and one can always edit the boot script files if the root account has been activated. those scripts are in private/etc directory.

 

[Phirax]

oh and another note, what filesystem does Mac OS X use? and is the folder structure layed out unix/linux style?
eg:

/etc
/dev
/proc
/bin

 

[robbieduncan]

oh and another note, what filesystem does Mac OS X use? and is the folder structure layed out unix/linux style?
eg:

/etc
/dev
/proc
/bin

Whilst the "normal" unix file system is there it's hidden from the user at the Finder level. At the terminal you can see it all though.

 

[encro]

I believe there's a way to set it so that it shows up like command-v every time you startup, but I can't remember where to do that. There should be a simple way to change it back and forth.

There is

Permanent Verbose mode:

nvram boot-args="-v"

You will lose this setting if you reset the PRAM via the hotkey combination or using a Forth command (reset-nvram &&|| reset-all) in Open Firmware.

...or restore back to the default hidden mode:

nvram boot-args="" (No space between the quotes)


As always: Be careful when messing with this stuff. Make sure you type it correctly otherwise you will end up creating uneeded variables in your non volatile ram.

 

[MacFan26]

There is

Permanent Verbose mode:

nvram boot-args="-v"

Cool, I'll add that to my stickies I think it's fun to see it start up in verbose mode for some reason, maybe it's because deep down I miss watching the extensions on the bottom of the screen