BEASTIE.4TH(8)

📦 version 15.1, in freebsd 14.5, freebsd 15.1

✨ beastie.4th(8) ✨

okay so bestie, listen 💖 this is the manual page for beastie.4th, which lives in the System Manager's Manual section (section 8, for the sysadmin girlies). it's a whole vibe, let me tell you.

🎀 NAME 🎀

beastie.4th — the FreeBSD ASCII art boot module, aka the thing that draws the little daemon guy. iconic. no cap. 👑

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so the file that goes by the name of beastie.4th is literally just a set of commands designed to draw the ASCII art FreeBSD mascot — known simply as beastie — to the right of the boot loader menu. that's it. that's the whole job, and she does it gorgeously. 💅

heads up bestie: the commands of beastie.4th by themselves are not enough for most uses. please refer to the EXAMPLES below for the most common situations, and to loader(8) for additional commands. don't come for me, i'm just the messenger. 😭

before using any of the commands provided in beastie.4th, it must be included through the command:

include beastie.4th

this line is present in the default /boot/loader.rc file, so it is not needed (and should not be re-issued) in a normal setup. like, please don't. it's already there. 🫶

the commands provided by it are:

  • draw-beastie — draws the FreeBSD logo. 🎨

the logo that is drawn is configured by setting the loader_logo variable in loader.conf(5) to one of “beastie”, “beastiebw”, “fbsdbw”, “orb”, and “orbbw” (the default).

the position of the logo can be configured by setting the loader_logo_x and loader_logo_y variables in loader.conf(5). the default values are 46 (x) and 4 (y).

  • clear-beastie — clears the screen of beastie. bye bestie 👋✨
  • beastie-start — initializes the interactive boot loader menu. the main character energy of the whole operation, fr fr. 🌟

the loader_delay variable can be configured in loader.conf(5) to the number of seconds you would like to delay loading the boot menu. during the delay the user can press Ctrl+C to fall back to autoboot or ENTER to proceed. the default behavior is to not delay. (patience is a virtue but the default is zero, iykyk.)

the environment variables that effect its behavior are:

  • loader_logo — selects the desired logo in the beastie boot menu. possible values are: “fbsdbw”, “beastie”, “beastiebw”, “orb”, “orbbw” (default), and “none”. 🖼️
  • loader_logo_x — sets the desired column position of the logo. default is 46.
  • loader_logo_y — sets the desired row position of the logo. default is 4.
  • beastie_disable — if set to “YES”, the beastie boot menu will be skipped. the beastie boot menu is always skipped if running non-x86 hardware. (sorry arm girlies, no beastie for you 😭)
  • loader_delay — if set to a number higher than zero, introduces a delay before starting the beastie boot menu. during the delay the user can press either Ctrl+C to skip the menu or ENTER to proceed to the menu. the default is to not delay when loading the menu.

🦋 FILES 🦋

  • /boot/loader — the loader(8). the actual engine of the whole fit.
  • /boot/beastie.4th — beastie.4th itself. hi queen 💖
  • /boot/loader.rc — loader(8) bootstrapping script.

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

standard i386 /boot/loader.rc:

include /boot/beastie.4th
beastie-start

set a different logo in loader.conf(5):

loader_logo="beastie"

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

loader.conf(5), loader(8), loader.4th(8) — go read these too bestie, they're the supporting cast and they ate. ✨

💀 HISTORY 💀

the beastie.4th set of commands first appeared in FreeBSD 5.1. ancient. legendary. a real one. 🧚

💜 AUTHORS 💜

the beastie.4th set of commands was written by Scott Long <scottl@FreeBSD.org>, Aleksander Fafula <alex@fafula.com> and Devin Teske <dteske@FreeBSD.org>. absolute icons, all three of them. thank you for your service. 🫡💖

🎀 and that's the whole page bestie! this one came from the Debian crew, dated January 6, 2016 — a lil vintage moment, honestly. slay. 💅✨🌟
📦 where this page comes from