Arch Linux

vectorman

Member

Registered: 2011-04-26

Posts: 16

One wallpaper from GRUB2 boot, to login (wihtout flickering)

I've been usage-testing arch for some time on my netbook-esque laptop (ultraportable?), and I'm happy to say that I have decided to stick with the beast!  (Seriously, I lost track of time tweaking my system last night and went to bed in the wee hours of the morning!)

I've decided to take up the task of creating a "seamless" boot setup, while keeping things light -- basically making one background image stick to the screen from the bootup to the start of the x session while trying to avoid showing any.  My setup is as follows:

1-- GRUB2 - used to set initial resolution (1366x768x24) and wallpaper (wallpaper.tga)

2-- **** I have all the problems here.  I may put Splashscreen-solution: Splashy? fbsplash? Plymouth? ****

3-- SLiM with a modified theme using (a link to) wallpaper.png

4-- Openbox session with wallpaper and desktop icons set by pcmanfm

Currently, after selecting my grub entry, the wallpaper shamelessly disappears and is replaced by a black screen with some arch logos and console output for a moment before abruptly switching over to the all-black console output where all of the boot info is shown.  Then it goes to tty login, then SLiM starts up...

I recall 3 times the console output "flickers" and changes: after I leave grub, there's the console with the archlogos, then there's the boot output console, then there's the tty login that waits on SLiM to startup.  Can I just set background.png/tga for all of these console backgrounds during boot? (I may possibly remove SLiM if I can do that...)  Do I HAVE to install a bootsplash app (like splashy fbsplash or plymouth) to get this desired behavior?  If so will those apps set my background during the tty login prompt while SLiM loads up?

wojox

Member

From: San Antonio TX.

Registered: 2009-08-27

Posts: 35

Re: One wallpaper from GRUB2 boot, to login (wihtout flickering)

A lot of it depends on your graphics card/chipset vectorman. I can get a seemless boot with Fedora and Plymouth on Intel. If I install the same on Nvidia, all hell breaks loose. So it really boils down to your video. What are you running?

lspci | grep VGA

---

“Simplicity is the key to brilliance.” - Bruce Lee

vectorman

Member

Registered: 2011-04-26

Posts: 16

Re: One wallpaper from GRUB2 boot, to login (wihtout flickering)

0:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)

Sorry, forgot to give any details.

And since it's not unrelated: I couldn't get splashy to compile for some reason.  I can't find any videos of it in action on the web to see how it looks in action...

aitorpazos

Member

Registered: 2011-06-12

Posts: 5

Website

Re: One wallpaper from GRUB2 boot, to login (wihtout flickering)

It's an old thread, but I can't see it has been solved. My try has been using the following setup: grub2, plymouth, systemd and lightdm.

I've tried to archieve this, using the following options:

• /etc/default/grub:
  The idea is to boot to tty7, the same as lightdm, so no VT switch makes things "ugly".

  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="vt.handoff=7 quiet splash init=/usr/lib/systemd/systemd logo.nologo add_efi_memmap"
  GRUB_GFXMODE=1280x800x32
  GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep
  GRUB_BACKGROUND="/boot/bg.png"

• Systemd:
  Enable lightdm-plymouth.service unit and disable any other greeter (kdm.service, gdm.service, lightdm.service, etc.)

• /etc/lightdm/lightdm.conf:

  greeter-user=lightdm
  minimum-display-number=0
  minimum-vt=7
  run-directory=/run/lightdm
  start-default-seat=true

With this setup I'm getting all three flicks, so it's not working as I'd like. I'm using a Dell Latitude E4300 with integrated graphics (Mobile Intel® GM45).

aitorpazos

Member

Registered: 2011-06-12

Posts: 5

Website

Re: One wallpaper from GRUB2 boot, to login (wihtout flickering)

vt.handoff=7

This kernel command line parameter seems to be Ubuntu specific so it's not useful.

Padfoot

Member

Registered: 2010-09-03

Posts: 381

Re: One wallpaper from GRUB2 boot, to login (wihtout flickering)

Also, best to have your video driver started in your initramfs, so the kernel mode switching happens much earlier in the boot to your native resolution. Without this, there wil be a flicker as the resolution changes to native during the boot.

Add "i915" to the modules section of your /etc/mkinitcpio.conf
Run sudo mkinitcpio -p linux

Cheers.

aitorpazos

Member

Registered: 2011-06-12

Posts: 5

Website

Re: One wallpaper from GRUB2 boot, to login (wihtout flickering)

I forgot to mention that I had already added i915 to modules in mkinitcpio.conf .
I've moved lightdm to vt1 and Plymouth to lightdm transition works fine now.

minimum-vt=1

Now I'll try to silence systemd's console output completely. Grub2 to Plymouth flick still to be removed.

aitorpazos

Member

Registered: 2011-06-12

Posts: 5

Website

Re: One wallpaper from GRUB2 boot, to login (wihtout flickering)

There is an issue with "quiet" and "loglevel=3" kernel parameters. Using quiet, makes initramfs image to keep quiet, but once I use this option I get my i915 error messages. The only way I'm able to silent them is to use solely "loglevel=3" kernel parameter, but then, initramfs is not quiet anymore.