inscatolati - Get out of the box! :)

Just run:

# apt-get install linuxlogo

and follow the instructions. Tipically, you will have to modify the file /etc/inittab and add something like:

2:23:respawn:/sbin/getty -f /etc/issue.linuxlogo 38400 tty2

By default, the linux kernel will output lot of different kind of messages on your console. To disable them, you can run:

dmesg -n1

to tell the kernel to only send panic messages to your console. This is useful, for example, when you have enabled log martian in the kernel, added some -j LOG in iptables, or you have some hardware problem that's causing the kernel to spam you.

If you don't have a prompt, or it's too hard to write, and have emergency sysctl enabled in your kernel, you can try pressing ctrl+alt+stamp+1 (aka ctrl+alt+sysreq+1).

If you want this parameter to be automatically set at every reboot, you can add the -c1 parameter to klogd, in /etc/init.d. To do so in Debian, you need to modify /etc/default/klogd, to have something like:

KLOGD="-c1 [whatever parameter was already there]"

Note that even though this parameter is set to 1, the messages will still go to syslogd, which can decide that the message is important enough to be outputted in your console. Either stop syslogd temporarily, or change /etc/syslog.conf if it bothers you.