Flicker-free boot with Plymouth and OEM logo using BGRT

[dirtvoyles]

I would like to have a fairly slick looking boot on my new laptop. I was Ubuntu for a long time, and then Mint, and now to Debian. I searched for plymouth, flicker free, etc. and didn't find any results for this so I'm posting here. In addition, I have been Googling and tried posting to Reddit in relevant subreddits to no avail.

My hardware is a Dell 7410 2 in 1 with an i7 and Intel graphics using the i915. Also have an AX210 Wi-Fi card that was fun to get working. I am using Sid because I'm a sucker for pain. If it matters, I'm using Cinnamon as my DE.

To this point I have installed Plymouth which is working and I have Grub showing the Dell logo, albeit blown up.

So, currently I have BIOS logo, flickering, blown out Dell logo by Grub, flickering, Plymouth with proper Dell logo and spinner. Then, login.

Thanks for reading my novel.

[dirtvoyles]

I believe I have nailed it down to being a GRUB issue with the display settings changing when the switch from BIOS changes. Plymouth is showing as expected.

To ask a slightly different question, is there a way to have grub keep BIOS resolution and not blank the screen using Intel integrated graphics, and smoothly hand off to Plymouth?

[dirtvoyles]

Is my question so badly formed, hated, or otherwise ignorant? I am genuinely curious.

It seems strange that with all the Googling and rabbit hole-ing I've done trying to get this to work that there is no clue I can find other than the Arch and Fedora how-to's to make this work. So, I'm seriously curious if I'm that afoul of the question standards or something else.

[mm3100]

Sometimes people don't respond here if they can't help you much, or don't know how to help you. I have had same idea as you as to get flicker free boot, but have given up on it on debian 10, will try to deal with that once 11 comes out.

[dirtvoyles]

Thank you for the reply! I'm used to being able to accomplish whatever I need or at least figure it out by a walkthrough or adapting something, but this has thoroughly beaten me down.

I don't know the boot process except superficially so I've tried a lot of things that probably are irrelevant, but I know Debian prefers stability over new so it will come. I just want to rush it and have a pretty boot to go with my pretty OS and pretty laptop.

[pylkko]

Yes, Fedora has had this for some years now, in addition to there not being these screen reinits/flickers, the UEFI can continue to show content (like vendor logos) when the operating system is loading (or alternatively plymouth can display its stuff). But as far as I know, it is quite complicated. They (Hans de Goede) made a customized version of grub. and Debian most certainly does not carry it. But they also did some kind of work with intel driver developers, so not even sure if it would work on Debian with the custom Grub.

https://hansdegoede.livejournal.com/20632.html
https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Flicker_Free_Boot
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/FlickerFreeBoot

[dirtvoyles]

I saw that work and thought that it had been merged. Admittedly I didn't read too deeply into the process however.

I am sure it will take Debian some time to adopt any changes, but I hoped since, and forgive me for bringing this up, Ubuntu accomplishes it with install that there might be some way to get the same result in Debian. I know they have a lot of heavy customization and possibly bastardization over there, but given Debian is the base I had hope.

Thanks so much for your responses. I'll keep looking here and there, so please pass anything along if you see something.

[pylkko]

Well, in my view Debian has adopted a surprising amount of "aesthetical" stuff in the last years to make the OS work well and easily for desktop use. And I see no reason something like this would not be adapted, but of course if it is, it will take some time and it probably needs to be upstreamed entirely and with proper licenses. Many other distributions have more functionality because they are more loose with the the requirements for the packages and licenses.

[dirtvoyles]

I agree it is much, um, prettier than it used to be when I looked. I understand not adding aesthetics without good reason, but users do want a better UX and that is tied to 'pretty' right or wrong.

I'll keep my fingers crossed to make my flow better, even just from boot.