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Howto: Plymouth in Debian Squeeze

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Mr James
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Howto: Plymouth in Debian Squeeze

#1 Post by Mr James »

Part 1: Setting up the framebuffer

Those that do not use the proprietary graphics drivers can skip this part.

Those that use the proprietary graphics drivers lose a wonderful feature called KMS and anything running outside of X will look like crap because the resolution is way off.
Install v86d and hwinfo. These tools will allow us to discover and set the appropriate framebuffer resolution.

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# apt-get install v86d hwinfo
now run

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# hwinfo --framebuffer
to get a list of valid resolutions you can run the framebuffer in. Choose the resolution that is closest to your native screen resolution (what you use in X) and remember or copy it.

Edit the /etc/default/grub file.

Find the line that starts with GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT and edit it to

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GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset video=uvesafb:mode_option=1400x1050-24,mtrr=3,scroll=ywrap"
Then uncomment (remove the hash at the beginning) and edit the GRUB_GFXMODE line to

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GRUB_GFXMODE=1400x1050
And in both instances replace the "1400x1050" to whatever resolution you got from hwinfo. My screen's native resolution is 1920x1080 and 1400x1050 is the best I got.

Now edit the /etc/initramfs-tools/modules file. Add the following line

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uvesafb mode_option=1400x1050-24 mtrr=3 scroll=ywrap
Also replacing "1400x1050" for the resolution you got with hwinfo.

Run

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# echo FRAMEBUFFER=y | tee /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/splash
And then

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# update-grub2
# update-initramfs -u
to apply the changes.

Part 2: Setting up Plymouth

Run

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# apt-get install plymouth
to install plymouth.

Now run

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# /usr/sbin/plymouth-set-default-theme --list
to get a list of available theme names. Choose one.

Run

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# /usr/sbin/plymouth-set-default-theme THEME
replacing THEME with whatever theme name you chose.

Finally, run

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# update-initramfs -u 

now and after every theme change to apply your selection.
Last edited by Mr James on 2011-02-09 19:47, edited 1 time in total.
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vinnie1
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Re: Howto: Plymouth in Debian Squeeze

#2 Post by vinnie1 »

Hi

Just wanted to say thanks for this howto.

It worked perfectly on a system with Nvidia graphics card. :D

evelpete
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Re: Howto: Plymouth in Debian Squeeze

#3 Post by evelpete »

Works perfectly.
On my gracefully aging VIAO, I had to replace "nomodeset" in /etc/default/grub with "i915.modeset=0". This also improved my boot time and got rid of those annoying EDID invalid messages.

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Re: Howto: Plymouth in Debian Squeeze

#4 Post by FreewheelinFrank »

This didn't work for me until I did these things from the Debian Wiki

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Removed- see below

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GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

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update-grub2
http://wiki.debian.org/plymouth

But it did help me on the way, so thanks for that, and good luck to Googlers following.

EDIT: I went back and checked, and the first step (below) seems to have been unnecessary.

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GRUB_GFXMODE=<my_monitor_size>
Last edited by FreewheelinFrank on 2011-02-16 08:10, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Howto: Plymouth in Debian Squeeze

#5 Post by stevepusser »

It also works in a guest in a Virtual Box virtual machine without all the messing around with framebuffers...which is weird.
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Re: Howto: Plymouth in Debian Squeeze

#6 Post by sqlpython »

I personally have no need/interest in Plymouth BUT...............

but a good Howto always deserves a thanks!
Thanks Mr. James..
Criticism accepted for solutions that work! ;^)

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Re: Howto: Plymouth in Debian Squeeze

#7 Post by Mr James »

@ FreewheelinFrank and stevepusser: The wierd framebuffer thing is to get proper resolution within virtual terminals and for the plymouth graphic itself when KMS is absent, in other words - anywhere outside of X.

@Everybody: Thanks, guys. As long as someone found it useful, I am happy.
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Re: Howto: Plymouth in Debian Squeeze

#8 Post by FreewheelinFrank »

Mr James wrote:@ FreewheelinFrank and stevepusser: The wierd framebuffer thing is to get proper resolution within virtual terminals and for the plymouth graphic itself when KMS is absent, in other words - anywhere outside of X.
Mr James wrote:Part 1: Setting up the framebuffer

Those that do not use the proprietary graphics drivers can skip this part.
I don't use a proprietary graphics driver so I skipped that part.

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Re: Howto: Plymouth in Debian Squeeze

#9 Post by Mr James »

FreewheelinFrank wrote:I don't use a proprietary graphics driver so I skipped that part.
Then what you doing fiddling with GRUB_GFXMODE?
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Re: Howto: Plymouth in Debian Squeeze

#10 Post by FreewheelinFrank »

Mr James wrote:
FreewheelinFrank wrote:I don't use a proprietary graphics driver so I skipped that part.
Then what you doing fiddling with GRUB_GFXMODE?
Getting Plymouth to work.

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Re: Howto: Plymouth in Debian Squeeze

#11 Post by FreewheelinFrank »

I went back and checked, and the change to GFXMODE seems to have been unnecessary.

Code: Select all

GRUB_GFXMODE=<my_monitor_size>

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Re: Howto: Plymouth in Debian Squeeze

#12 Post by Red-guy »

Great HOWTO Mr. James, have it setup now on my computer running Wheezy.
Today I think...Tomorrow I solve
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Re: Howto: Plymouth in Debian Squeeze

#13 Post by Mr James »

You're most welcome, friend.
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Re: Howto: Plymouth in Debian Squeeze

#14 Post by phenest »

Excellent Mr James! Works with my nVidia GPU, and in my VBox VM too.
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Re: Howto: Plymouth in Debian Squeeze

#15 Post by phenest »

phenest wrote:Excellent Mr James! Works with my nVidia GPU, and in my VBox VM too.
Although, it is only 16 bit colour (less than 24 bit for sure) at startup, but 24 bit at shutdown. Shame it doesn't support widescreen.
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Re: Howto: Plymouth in Debian Squeeze

#16 Post by stevepusser »

In part because of this thread, and because an upcoming Debian Squeeze derived distro had no boot splash, we had a crash course in plymouth themes. It turns out that one can have a script file in the theme that can do all sort of magic, including determining the screen resolution and resizing a background image to fit. I admit we reused part of a script that was already out there on the net for Mint (mintdoes7)...but plymouth theming can be just as fun and involving as conky tuning, and I'm trying not to get sucked in....basically the theme has a progress bar, a message, and a background that the script resizes. The script is in the sources here:

ftp://ftp.mirrorservice.org/sites/ftp.m ... s-mepis11/
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Re: Howto: Plymouth in Debian Squeeze

#17 Post by regular »

Many great thanks! This got Plymouth to work on my system :)

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Re: Howto: Plymouth in Debian Squeeze

#18 Post by stevepusser »

I have noticed that the Debian and Ubuntu distros seem to ignore the "shutdown" and "suspend-resume" sections in the scripts. However, if you change the plymouth theme without updating the initrd file, then you can have one then run at boot from the initrd and different one run at shutdown. I have an Earth-sunrise and Earth-sunset theme doing just that.
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Re: Howto: Plymouth in Debian Squeeze

#19 Post by geazzy »

nice tutorial :)

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Re: Howto: Plymouth in Debian Squeeze

#20 Post by EddieB »

Thanks a million Mr. James ... This is great ...

As an aside ... I had to make a few tweaks to the kernel boot options to get things running smoothly as dmesg was throwing mtrr errors ...

After checking out the uvesafb docs I modified my mtrr boot params to 2 - write-back ... And everything's running great now ...

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GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset video=uvesafb:1024x768-24,mtrr:2,ywrap"
For some reason a grub background wouldn't show up with a GRUB_GFXMODE option for me ... but it works fine without it ...

Thanks for the info chief ... The solar theme is too cool ... :mrgreen:
"The Problem is Your Not Grokking Debian ... "

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