Ubuntu
plymouth package

Plymouth starts approx at the end of the boot.

Asked by smurf on 2013-02-11

Hi, I'm using 12.04 (AMD64).
After migrating from 10.04 to 12.04 I found that the Grub wallpaper stay a long time on the screen and the splash image managed by Plymouth appears only in the last 2 - 3 seconds of the boot.
I thought it was a problem from Grub, but in the Grub mailing list they answered me this:
.....
This is actually an Ubuntu "feature", they wanted to have a seamless
transition between grub, plymouth, and GDM and so they configured
things so that the image left by grub doesn't get overwritten until
plymouth starts. This feature seems to be configured by passing the
vt.handoff=7 kernel parameter and is technically outside the scope of
grub as it's not grub that's interpreting this parameter but I'll try
to pass on what (little) information I know about it (most of which
can be found at
http://askubuntu.com/questions/32999/what-is-vt-handoff-7-parameter-in-grub-cfg
as well).
.....

So I now ask why Plymouth starts so late during the boot?
Which is the sense of a splash image that appears only for 2 seconds instead of demonstrate that the boot is in progress?

Question information

Language:: English Edit question

Status:: Solved

For:: Ubuntu plymouth Edit question

Assignee:: No assignee Edit question

Solved by:: smurf

Solved:: 2013-02-13

Last query:: 2013-02-13

Last reply:: 2013-02-13

Link existing bug

Revision history for this message

actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said on 2013-02-12:

What is the output of:

sudo lshw -C display; lsb_release -a; uname -a

Thanks

Revision history for this message

smurf (luca-dgh) said on 2013-02-12:

luca@pc-sala:~$ sudo lshw -C display; lsb_release -a; uname -a
[sudo] password for luca:
  *-display
       descripción: VGA compatible controller
       producto: GT218 [GeForce 210]
       fabricante: NVIDIA Corporation
       id físico: 0
       información del bus: pci@0000:02:00.0
       versión: a2
       anchura: 64 bits
       reloj: 33MHz
       capacidades: pm msi pciexpress vga_controller bus_master cap_list rom
       configuración: driver=nvidia latency=0
       recursos: irq:18 memoria:fb000000-fbffffff memoria:c0000000-dfffffff memoria:f8000000-f9ffffff ioport:ec00(size=128) memoria:faf80000-faffffff
LSB Version: core-2.0-amd64:core-2.0-noarch:core-3.0-amd64:core-3.0-noarch:core-3.1-amd64:core-3.1-noarch:core-3.2-amd64:core-3.2-noarch:core-4.0-amd64:core-4.0-noarch
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 12.04.2 LTS
Release: 12.04
Codename: precise
Linux pc-sala 3.2.0-37-generic #58-Ubuntu SMP Thu Jan 24 15:28:10 UTC 2013 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Revision history for this message

actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said on 2013-02-12:

It's a known issue with Plymouth and proprietary video drivers. The driver loads slowly so you get no boot splash til it loads. You will get the splash when you shutdown as the driver is loaded

Revision history for this message

smurf (luca-dgh) said on 2013-02-12:

I understand, but I'm not sure that this is the real answer to the problem because on 10.04 I was using exactly the same video card and the same drivers, but there plymouth was starting immediately after grub, why?

Revision history for this message

actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said on 2013-02-12:

It's a different boot splash if memory serves.

Revision history for this message

smurf (luca-dgh) said on 2013-02-12:

Not in my case, because i'm using the same splash theme (solar.plymouth) that I was using on 10.04:

luca@pc-sala:~$ sudo update-alternatives --config default.plymouth
Existen 2 opcioens para la alternativa default.plymouth (que provee /lib/plymouth/themes/default.plymouth).

  Selección Ruta Prioridad Estado
------------------------------------------------------------
  0 /lib/plymouth/themes/ubuntu-logo/ubuntu-logo.plymouth 100 modo automático
* 1 /lib/plymouth/themes/solar/solar.plymouth 10 modo manual
  2 /lib/plymouth/themes/ubuntu-logo/ubuntu-logo.plymouth 100 modo manual

Pulse <Intro> para mantener el valor por omisión [*] o pulse un número de selección:
luca@pc-sala:~$

Furthermore I'm not sure that plymouth needs the proprietary video drivers to work, I'm looking for info anyway.

Revision history for this message

actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said on 2013-02-13:

It's the driver udev is told to load. You can work around it if you really want to mess with your OS for the sake of a boot splash if you want..... I personally wouldn't bother.

Revision history for this message

smurf (luca-dgh) said on 2013-02-13:

For sure I'll not play with udev, but now I'm satisfied because I understand what's the problem.
Thx a lot my friend.