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.

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.

beastie-start

Initializes the interactive boot loader menu.

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.

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 booting UEFI or running non-x86 hardware.

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.