Re: [PATCH 5/6] installer: suppress boot console status noise

[Alyssa Ross <hi@alyssa.is>]

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colby@colbyt.com writes:

> That was just me reading the bugs page and taking a crack at https://pad.lassul.us/s/mDfFPvHjA
>
> "Make flicker-free boot work more reliably in the installer
> systemd messages are sometimes displayed in the installer in between Plymouth exiting and cage starting. Reproduce some of these messages, and figure out what we need to set to disable them."
>
> It seemed to me that was your answer!  But I could be wrong, I'm very new here.

No, that's exactly the right thing to have done!  I was just wondering
about the detail — did you try larger log levels and find them
insufficient?  Did you have to use all of these at once to achieve
flicker free boot?  I just want to make sure we understand why we're
adding each line!

> On Friday, June 26th, 2026 at 7:46 AM, Alyssa Ross <hi@alyssa.is> wrote:
>
>> colbyt <colby@colbyt.com> writes:
>> 
>> > The installer can show systemd or udev messages between Plymouth exiting
>> > and cage starting, which breaks the intended flicker-free graphical
>> > handoff.
>> >
>> > Add quiet/systemd/udev kernel parameters to suppress status output and
>> > stop forcing systemd.journald.forward_to_console in the QEMU runner.
>> > This keeps the installer VM aligned with the quiet graphical boot path.
>> >
>> > Signed-off-by: colbyt <colby@colbyt.com>
>> > ---
>> >  release/installer/configuration.nix | 9 ++++++++-
>> >  release/installer/run-vm.nix        | 5 +----
>> >  2 files changed, 9 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
>> >
>> > diff --git a/release/installer/configuration.nix b/release/installer/configuration.nix
>> > index 3f9ef24..daaf5b7 100644
>> > --- a/release/installer/configuration.nix
>> > +++ b/release/installer/configuration.nix
>> > @@ -11,7 +11,14 @@ in
>> >    imports = [ (modulesPath + "/profiles/all-hardware.nix") ];
>> >  
>> >    boot.consoleLogLevel = lib.mkDefault 2;
>> > -  boot.kernelParams = [ "udev.log_priority=5" ];
>> > +  boot.kernelParams = [
>> > +    "quiet"
>> > +    "loglevel=3"
>> > +    "systemd.show_status=false"
>> > +    "rd.systemd.show_status=false"
>> > +    "udev.log_level=3"
>> > +    "rd.udev.log_level=3"
>> > +  ];
>> 
>> Why 3 in particular?  Experimentation?  Inspiration from some other
>> distribution?
>> 
>> >    boot.initrd.verbose = false;
>> >  
>> >    boot.kernelPackages = pkgs.linuxPackages_latest;
>> > diff --git a/release/installer/run-vm.nix b/release/installer/run-vm.nix
>> > index b9907f7..6639c8b 100644
>> > --- a/release/installer/run-vm.nix
>> > +++ b/release/installer/run-vm.nix
>> > @@ -40,8 +40,5 @@ writeShellScript "run-spectrum-installer-vm.sh" ''
>> >      -drive file=/proc/self/fd/3,format=raw,if=virtio \
>> >      -kernel ${installer.kernel} \
>> >      -initrd ${installer.initramfs} \
>> > -    -append ${escapeShellArg (toString [
>> > -      installer.kernelParams
>> > -      "systemd.journald.forward_to_console"
>> > -    ])}
>> > +    -append ${escapeShellArg installer.kernelParams}
>> >  '') (_: {})
>> 
>> The divergence here was intentional, since in development it's very
>> useful to be able to see logs on the serial console, and it should have
>> a minimal impact on anything else.  Did you see this causing problems
>> with flicker-free boot or something?
>> 

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