[SOLVED] Arch logo in ASCII text on boot? + Plymouth problems

l1nuxfr3@k · 2016-06-12 13:47:18

Hello everyone! Sorry if I have left this post in a wrong place here on the forum. I was quite unsure where this kind of post should be sorted so I decided to take the "Newbie Corner" since I am new here. I have installed the newest version of Arch Linux on my PC and had quite a fun while installing it and setting it up. Now I have a beautiful customized GNOME interface with plenty of tweaks, LightDM display manager with lightdm-pantheon-greeter from AUR. The build of my kernel is: 4.6.2-1-ARCH. My current version of systemd is 230. Everything seemed to be working just right! But, then I decided to customize the logo of my OS. I loved some of the packages from AUR, and I have tried a few of them but Plymouth showed really buggy and unstable so I had to remove it. Generally, it wouldn't boot my system from time to time without a reason. I tried different methods but ended up with random results. Firstly, systemd-analyze command blamed Plymouth for a long start. To be exact, "Plymouth Terminate Script" was on hold. I even tried to stop it right from the gdm init script which failed. GDM Plymouth patch didn't work; LightDM couldn't cope with Plymouth as well. I would have a logo screen showing up, then disappearing after 3-4 seconds, then just a black screen.

This was my mkinitcpio.conf file (at least, important part of it ) :

HOOKS="base udev plymouth autodetect modconf block filesystems keyboard"

My grub configuration was setup this way:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

GRUB_GFXMODE=1920x1080
GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep

This worked. At least for the logo. But the system wouldn't boot.
Firstly it was the terminate script that didn't work.
And after enabling gdm-plymouth.service I had this problem

[ OK ] Started Session c1 of user gdm.
[ OK ] Started User Manager for UID 120.
Stopping User Manager for UID 120...
[ OK ] Stopped User Manager for UID 120...
[ OK ] Removed slice User Slice of gdm.
[ OK ] Created slice User Slice of gdm.
Starting User Manager for UID 120...

Appearantly, there was a loop going on after Plymouth was terminated.
From time to time it would boot, but systemd-analyze would say "boot not completed" , or something like that..

Finally, I ended up giving up. I decided to remove Plymouth, switch to LightDM and create myself an Arch ASCII logo
(which I did, and it looks awesome) .. I have a script called printlogo which does the thing.

But I just cannot find a way to print it on the screen, during boot.
Especially with other text such as "Starting version 230.." removed..

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet rd.udev.log-priority=3 loglevel=3"

I have also disabled fsck messages so now I have a black screen and the system boots successfully, really fast.

I tried creating my own systemd service, but I didn't like the result. The logo wouldn't show. I tried writing to /dev/tty1 directly from root and it did work so I tried on the scripts and NOTHING. Blank black screen.

Then I thought that maybe there is a way to add my own hook xD
I guess the rules are different, cus I had a kernel panic thingy showing up

Sorry for the long post. My question is.. What should I do now?
Thanks in advance!

Last edited by l1nuxfr3@k (2016-06-12 21:09:58)

ewaller · 2016-06-12 15:00:56

I believe that the logo during boot is not compatible with KMS https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ke … de_setting
Which is enabled in Arch Linux

l1nuxfr3@k · 2016-06-12 16:51:15

Thanks for reply! Fortunately, I've figured out a way to solve this problem with Plymouth so no need for ASCII .
It is a quick fix but it works like charm. For everyone having this problem (logo is there but after logo disappears, you end up with a black screen; boot.log says "Waiting for Terminate Plymouth Script" or something like that) , here is the fix:

> sudo nano /lib/initcpio/hooks/plymouth
( or choose any other text editor )

find this part...

run_latehook(){
/usr/bin/plymouth update-root-fs --new-root-dir=/new_root
}

add "/usr/bin/plymouth quit --retain-splash"
and make it look like this:

run_latehook(){
/usr/bin/plymouth update-root-fs --new-root-dir=/new_root
/usr/bin/plymouth quit --retain-splash
}

Then run:
> sudo mkinitcpio -p linux

The main reason why we had that "hold" problem during boot is because systemd had been waiting for plymouth-quit.service to complete which never happens! So I excluded it from systemd init scripts and added it to the run_latehook() of the plymouth hook

let's exclude plymouth-quit.service

> sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/display-manager.service

then omit plymouth-quit.service from the "[Unit] After" and "[Unit] Conflicts" segments (if any).
Once that is done, you can simply mask this service using systemctl

> sudo systemctl mask plymouth-quit.service

but what I did is simply removed it (with a backup copy somewhere in my home directory - always make backups )

Thats it! Reboot and you are okay.
This topic should now be marked as SOLVED.

Last edited by l1nuxfr3@k (2016-06-12 16:52:51)

Slithery · 2016-06-12 16:58:17

l1nuxfr3@k wrote:

This topic should now be marked as SOLVED.

Go on then...
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Co … ow_to_post

TheChickenMan · 2016-06-12 16:59:17

Plymouth includes a service for starting with lightdm (lightdm-plymouth.service) but plymouth does seem to run kind of buggy on Arch. You might want to try removing "quiet" from your boot command line while debugging this.

sail1943 · 2017-01-08 16:00:58

l1nuxfr3@k wrote:

Thanks for reply! Fortunately, I've figured out a way to solve this problem with Plymouth so no need for ASCII .
It is a quick fix but it works like charm. For everyone having this problem (logo is there but after logo disappears, you end up with a black screen; boot.log says "Waiting for Terminate Plymouth Script" or something like that) , here is the fix:
> sudo nano /lib/initcpio/hooks/plymouth
...

I have the gdm login problem too after setting up plymouth as the wiki wrote. And inspired by your answer, I find out that I can just enable plymouth-start.service and gdm-plymouth.service. There is no need to add the plymouth to the HOOK section of /etc/mkinitcpio.conf which may cause this problem.

Arch Linux

#1 2016-06-12 13:47:18

[SOLVED] Arch logo in ASCII text on boot? + Plymouth problems

#2 2016-06-12 15:00:56

Re: [SOLVED] Arch logo in ASCII text on boot? + Plymouth problems

#3 2016-06-12 16:51:15

Re: [SOLVED] Arch logo in ASCII text on boot? + Plymouth problems

#4 2016-06-12 16:58:17

Re: [SOLVED] Arch logo in ASCII text on boot? + Plymouth problems

#5 2016-06-12 16:59:17

Re: [SOLVED] Arch logo in ASCII text on boot? + Plymouth problems

#6 2017-01-08 16:00:58

Re: [SOLVED] Arch logo in ASCII text on boot? + Plymouth problems

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