The infamous blacksquares when using Plymouth bootsplash

manti111 · 2010-04-22 22:09:49

On the wiki they warned for it that black squares on top of the screen might occur plus they offered a solution. The main problem is, I use a DM. I attempted to edit the GDM start script to kill plymouth first (/bin/plymouth quit) and then procceed as normal. I also tried writing a bootscript that does the same, but that did not work either nor did adding the line to rc.local.
When I either restart GDM or switch tty and then switch back the problem is gone. Of course this not ideal and ofcourse we want it all to work first time.
I use no KMS, using fb instead.
I am even thinking of pulling Fedora appart to see how they do it.
Anyone else got an idea what might work?

scio · 2010-04-23 12:28:27

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ply … stallation

KMS is the only supported way to run Plymouth, if you use fb, you are asking for trouble.

Edit: Fedora uses KMS, no need to pull it apart.

Last edited by scio (2010-04-23 12:28:50)

manti111 · 2010-04-23 12:59:58

If I give up the fb I no can no longer use compositing. As I would rather like compositing, I think I will leave Plymouth what it is. But I still want to give it a crack with KMS, to see if using fb was the issue afterall.

scio · 2010-04-23 16:50:40

What graphics driver and hardware are you using? The big 3 and somewhat modern hardware all support KMS and composting.

manti111 · 2010-04-23 22:02:38

A Radeon HD4850 is what I am using. Also when using KMS, it kicks in too late, so plymouth starts first and then KMS kicks in. Also when allowing KMS, I cannot use compositing, both with Compiz Fusion and Kwin.
Kwin I knew of that, that Compiz does it, puzzles me.
For now, I use no plymouth, Arch still works fine without, but I cannot do without Compiz when using Gnome. I have been too spoiled with KDE 4.

Last edited by manti111 (2010-04-23 22:05:11)

scio · 2010-04-24 13:05:55

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ati#Early_KMS_start

That is how you get early KMS, it kicks in right after the bootloader. Unfortunately I've only used nvidia and intel for KMS and compositing, because my ATI is an evergreen card. Hopefully soon I can try this out on that machine as well.

brevity · 2011-08-11 02:24:08

I don't know much about the problem but I think my experience might help since it works for me. I've been experiencing the similar problem untill I came up with a simple idea: Since the infamous black squares are caused by the "--retain -splash" option, what if I use that framebuffer again after plymouth quits but before gdm starts? So I installed "fbida" via pacman, and use /etc/rc.local to start fbi to display an image on the tty where gdm will be running. Here's the relative part of my rc.local.

chvt 7 && timeout 5 fbi -d /dev/fb0 -a <path/to/image/file>
#chvt 7 is to change the console to tty7 where gdm will be running
#the image file can be a custom welcome screen or something and during the 5 seconds timeout you can still press 'q' to quit fbi

After tried it out, all those black squares are gone. Cheeres!
Don't know if it works for you but hope my solution can be helpful.

Last edited by brevity (2011-08-11 02:36:27)

Arch Linux

#1 2010-04-22 22:09:49

The infamous blacksquares when using Plymouth bootsplash

#2 2010-04-23 12:28:27

Re: The infamous blacksquares when using Plymouth bootsplash

#3 2010-04-23 12:59:58

Re: The infamous blacksquares when using Plymouth bootsplash

#4 2010-04-23 16:50:40

Re: The infamous blacksquares when using Plymouth bootsplash

#5 2010-04-23 22:02:38

Re: The infamous blacksquares when using Plymouth bootsplash

#6 2010-04-24 13:05:55

Re: The infamous blacksquares when using Plymouth bootsplash

#7 2011-08-11 02:24:08

Re: The infamous blacksquares when using Plymouth bootsplash

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