Plymouth Logo Looks Like A Mess When Booting

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DasFox
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I'm running 4.5 x86_64 and when the Plymouth Trisquel Logo appears after grub boots, after a few seconds, kernel/dmesg text will appear in front of the logo on the screen...

Looks like a real mess, and these kernel messages should be staying in the background behind the logo, so I hope soon someone can fix this...

Sorry I only have a junk cellphone, that I took a picture of so you can see this;

http://imageshack.us/f/819/trisquel.jpg/

By the way it seems to me that the look/color that Trisquel has been sticking with is in a blue hue, so it would of been really nice to put some color on that logo, the black background with the white text, looks really bad, like old, like as in no style...

Let's be honest here, when you look at most distros today, they have fancy looking boot up logos, graphics, wallpapers, themes, etc...

THANKS

DasFox
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Sorry didn't mean to sound rude in the post, I just think that as nice as Trisquel is, it should have a much nicer looking boot logo...

AndrewT

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Trisquel actually does have a boot logo (and a nice one, I might add). The reason you can't see it is because you have a Radeon card (sucks, I know). I have the same problem, except I don't see any of the kernel messages. Hmmm...

DasFox
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What's wrong with Radeon KMS support in the kernel?

It shouldn't matter what chip you use, we are only talk about an image...

I don't get what Radeon has to do with anything here...

THANKS

AndrewT

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You're right that it shouldn't matter, but for some reason, you only get a text boot splash if the driver is disabled, even though it's just a 2D image. Go figure.

Magic Banana

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At that stage of the startup Xorg is not running. It is absolutely not like displaying an image in Xorg. Wikipedia ( https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Plymouth_%28software%29 ) says:
"Plymouth is a bootsplash for Linux. It supports animations. It makes use of Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) and kernel-based mode-setting (KMS)."

That explains why a partial support of these two technologies (by the radeon driver) affects the bootsplash.

DasFox
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Ok Magic Banana, you're saying it makes use of KMS, well then my ATI chip should be taking advantage of this because the HD3200 chip takes advantage and uses KMS, I know because I have personally compiled my own kernel in the past for Slackware and enabled the KMS support and it was great, fast too. ;)

So then why isn't this working then in Trisquel?

THANKS

Mampir
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Joined: 12/16/2009

I don't understand what KMS is or how Plymouth works, but Michał
Masłowski already told you in another thread that KMS for AMD/ATI
GPUs doesn't work, because of removed non-free microcode from
Linux-libre, which is the kernel used by Trisquel.

Your AMD/ATI GPU might be able to take advantage of and use KMS, but
if for this it requires non-free microcode, then the issue is should
be obvious. As far as I'm aware, Slackware doesn't remove this
non-free microcode, and that's most probably the reason why you were
able to enable KMS with it.

DasFox
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Thanks Mampir...

This Plymouth boot screen is still junk, Ubuntu along with all the distros out there and Trisquel is just as much to blame, they all have problems like this.

It's like whoever is developing this thing and those putting it on their distro like Trisquel, no one seems to be testing this out on laptops, desktops have issues too, but I see it more in laptops..

Plymouth has been around for quite some time and the developers at Trisquel should realize as a Libre distro with so many people using various video chips, they should either hack this thing up or remove it and create something better that will look nice for everyone.

And if looks aren't important then I say rip the thing out and let people pick if the want to bootup looking at the console.

Personally as a geek I'd rather look at the console in nice Nouveau or KMS text going by to keep an eye out for any problems as it boots rather then some junk boot screen like Plymouth, also with your nice little Tux sitting at the top of the console too as it boots, let's not forget Tux, LOL...

To me, when you first boot up a distro you look at it and go WOW here's my nice new Linux and when your boot screen looks like crap booting up and restarting it doesn't give you a good first impression.

Not only should Trisquel be a Libre distro, but I think someone should starting thinking about removing the bloat crap too out of this distro like plymouth, if possible.

I've been into Linux 11 years and since plymouth came out, I've never see any good of it, nothing but problems and trouble...

Magic Banana

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First of all the operating system is called GNU/Linux (Linux is only its kernel): http://www.gnu.org/gnu/why-gnu-linux.html

Then, if you believe that important that Trisquel's developers "should either hack this thing up or remove it and create something better" then help yourself (or pay for it)! What gives you the right to complain about a free software (in all senses of the term "free")?

Notice that, for some (most?) laptops (including mine with an Intel graphic chip), the boot was made more aesthetic after the adoption of Plymouth. There is no more flickering when Xorg starts and, as far as I understand, this is thanks to the use of Kernel Mode Setting (that nouveau has troubles to manage).

Finally, choosing text over a bootsplash is only a matter of configuring GRUB. Too hard? Well, then install startupmanager ( https://help.ubuntu.com/community/StartUpManager ) from the repository and check the related box!

oysterboy

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Hello Magic Banana,

I have the exact same problem than the original poster and would like to replace the ugly (because of my ATI card) boot splash by textual boot information (as described in your startupmanager link). I could even live with completely hiding it - anything but staring at that monstrosity ;)

I played around with startupmanager but none of my choices seem to make any difference. I expected the following combination to improve the appearance at boot, but no such luck :

'Afficher l'animation d'amorcage' : UNCHECK
'Afficher le texte pendant l'amorcage' : CHECK

Can you - or anyone else - please help? Thanks!

Magic Banana

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I have just discovered that startupmanager is not maintained anymore: https://launchpad.net/startup-manager/+announcement/8300
Its author suggests the use of "Grub Costomizer" (not in the repository): https://launchpad.net/grub-customizer

However, completely disabling the splash screen should be a matter of:
1) launching from a terminal (in the Accessories menu) and with the administrator's rights ("sudo") your favorite editor (here "emacs") on /etc/default/grub:
$ sudo emacs /etc/default/grub
2) locating the following line:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
3) removing both keywords making the line appear as follows:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
4) saving and quitting the editor
5) updating GRUB2 with the following command (again executed with administrator's rights):
$ sudo update-grub

Tell me if that work (I have not tested but I am quite confident it will work).

oysterboy

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I'm sure you meant the following for point #3 :

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=""

And it does work :). Actually I finally settled on

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet"

because it was a bit too verbose for my taste when 'not quiet'.

Thanks for the help.

Magic Banana

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Yes, I forgot to remove the two options...

DasFox
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Look Magic Banana I don't Linux lessons, I've been using Linux for 11 years, I'm far from being a newbie that needs to be told what it is and isn't...

You're being rude and condescending!

Any of us has the right to call something junk when it is. I said Plymouth was junk not Trisquel, there's a big difference.

Ok so I shouldn't be calling something junk I am a true Linux geek and I do appreciate the efforts people put into this, but it does get frustrating dealing with the same problems over and over for years.

But are you honestly going to sit here and tell us that if you've used Linux for the past 11 years it's all just been a peachy dream ride for you and at times you didn't feel like yelling at some software or banging your head and calling it junk too? PLEASE give me a break!

Anyhow I'll do my best to refrain from calling things junk in the future...

THANKS

Ark74

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El sáb, 14-05-2011 a las 02:32 +0200, dasfox escribió:
> are you honestly going to sit here and tell us that if you've used Linux
> for the past 11 years it's all just been a peachy dream ride for you and at
> times you didn't feel like yelling at some software or banging your head and
> calling it junk too? PLEASE give me a break!
>
> Anyhow I'll do my best to refrain from calling things junk in the future...
>
> THANKS
>
I think is too deal much for a visual detail on a certain software.

Anyhow, i think that filling an improvement request will do more than
chatting about what i like or dislike on a mailing list.

PS. I invite you to call the system for it's complete name,
GNU/Linux-libre.
--
Luis A. Guzmán García
¡Se Libre! -- http://fsfla.org/selibre
The Hardware Database Project-- http://www.h-node.com
Distribuciones libres de GNU/Linux -- http://ur1.ca/3e8gu
No, no me encontrarás en Facebook -- http://www.fsf.org/fb
GPG Key: EB153FAF

AndrewT

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You are certainly entitled to calling software junk. With many thousands of packages in our repos, there are plenty of crappy programs you will find. Though personally I try to always err on the side of cutting the programmers some slack. The number of people that can program in any meaningful way are very few, and contributing to a free software project is usually a labor of love.

I'm not as dogmatic as others about saying "GNU/Linux". Personally, I prefer to say it, because it gives credit where it is due, though I think "GNU/Linux-Libre" is already too wordy. And besides, the Linux-libre project is doing nothing beyond taking out the binary blobs and redistributing that, exactly the way the Linux kernel would be if Linus Torvalds was serious about adhering to the license.

SirGrant

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Ok, I'm gonna jump in and try to be neutral so I'm gonna stay out of the actual drama and try to address the issue. I think part of the issue is we only have 1 main developer (quidam) and I don't know what kind of hardware but he only has so much so he can only test on what he has. He may not have an ATI card so he may not be able to reproduce this issue. So he may not be able to test it on tons of different laptops and desktops because he may not have them. I am also going to refrain from blaming anyone because I don't know whose fault this is. It could be ATI's for not freeing their drivers, plymouth for just being bad software or Ubuntu's and Trisquels for not testing enough. You may know more then I do and be able to place blame accurately so I'm not going to comment because I don't know how. I don't mind if you call stuff junk if it really is. Just make sure you are blaming the right people. That is just IMHO anyways.

I think you have about 4 options or so.

1) Download the source (http://trisquel.info/en/download) and fix it or disable it if that is your solution (from the previous post). Patches welcome.

2) Submit a bug report to both Trisquel (I know you already did this) and Plymouth (https://bugs.freedesktop.org/) or even submit a crowd funded task (http://trisquel.info/en/tasks). Like I said there is only one main dev and one person can only do so much. However if you care enough about this issue and are willing to put some $$ towards having it fixed you could do that. There is no risk too if the issue never gets fixed crowd funded taks never collect on it.

3) Petition ATI to free their source code and tell them you want free drivers.

4) Buy a different graphics card (I know this is not feasible for all)

There may be other options but these are the ones I can think of.