[solved] Plymouth OpenRC Plugin on efi stub bootloader?

Renkin42 · Last edited by Renkin42 on Wed Apr 30, 2025 6:01 am; edited 3 times in total

I'm trying to run the plymouth openrc plugin so I can see openrc messages on the splash screen, mostly just for something to look at other than just the spinner but hey technically useful. I had this working on my previous install but now it won't show anything. The only major difference I can think of is before I used grub and now I'm using the efi stub bootloader. I'm not seeing anything about it in sysklogd logs so not much to go on. any suggestions?

EDIT: in case it wasn’t clear Plymouth itself works (although only at boot, not on shutdown. Almost certain that worked before). It’s just the openrc plugin that isn’t showing up.

EDIT 2: Turns out it was a bug in the plugin. as of now there is an open pull request which I downloaded as a diff and added as a patch until the main package is updated. https://patch-diff.githubusercontent.com/raw/Kangie/plymouth-openrc-plugin/pull/2.diff

pabloblo · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 24 Jan 2024 Posts: 86

do you have in your efi boot entry : quiet splash plymouth.ignore-serial-consoles
and CONFIG_FB_SPLASH , CONFIG_DRM , CONFIG_FRAMEBUFFER_CONSOLE enable ?

Renkin42 · Posted: Sat Apr 26, 2025 12:41 pm Post subject:

pabloblo · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 24 Jan 2024 Posts: 86

are you using a kernel you compiled yourself, or a prebuilt/distribution kernel?

need to enable inside your kernel config (make menuconfig).
After enabling them (like DRM, framebuffer console, and optionally FB_SPLASH if available), you need to rebuild and reinstall your kernel and reboot.

Renkin42 · Posted: Mon Apr 28, 2025 2:48 am Post subject:

Ah sorry I forgot to mention I’m using the distribution kernel, sys-kernel/gentoo-kernel. No modifications (yet) so I would assume all that should be enabled though I’ll double check. Though I do want to be clear Plymouth itself is working, I have a splash screen. It’s specifically the openrc plugin that isn’t working. I have the spinner but no openrc messages below it.

pabloblo · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 24 Jan 2024 Posts: 86

You should check if openrc-plugin.so exists (ls /usr/lib64/plymouth/openrc-plugin.so)
If it doesn’t, you need to rebuild sys-boot/plymouth with the openrc USE flag enabled. (echo "sys-boot/plymouth openrc" >> /etc/portage/package.use/plymouth)
Also, make sure your /etc/plymouth/plymouthd.conf file has StartupManager=openrc.
After that, regenerate your initramfs and reboot.

Renkin42 · Posted: Tue Apr 29, 2025 4:38 am Post subject:

So the file you mentioned doesn't seem to exist. However Plymouth doesn't appear to have an openrc use flag. The plugin is it's own package, sys-boot/plymouth-openrc-plugin. That appears to be adding /usr/plugin/plymouth.so which is present. I tried rebuilding both the plugin as well as plymouth as well as adding the initmanager line to plymouthd.conf, but sadly no dice.

Renkin42 · Posted: Wed Apr 30, 2025 5:57 am Post subject:

FIXED! Turns out there is a known bug in the plugin that tries to grab the plugin directory from OpenRC using a variable it no longer provides. There is currently an open merge request for it, which I grabbed as a diff ( https://patch-diff.githubusercontent.com/raw/Kangie/plymouth-openrc-plugin/pull/2.diff ) and placed in /etc.portage/patches/sys-boot/plymouth-openrc-plugin-0.3.0-r1.This does seem to have triggered another bug in gdm where it no longer auto switched to vt7 with the plymouth use flag enabled. With it disabled gdm only starts on my external monitor instead of both, but gnome itself works fine so good enough for me.

pabloblo · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 24 Jan 2024 Posts: 86

well done!