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sdfg
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Joined: 11 Feb 2005
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 12, 2013 4:18 pm    Post subject: grub2 -> plymouth -> gdm Reply with quote

Heya,

I'm trying to setup a nice smooth (pretty) transition from grub2 all the way to the desktop. I use grub2, plymouth, and gdm, but there are two 'skips'. The first comes between grub2 and plymouth starting - the screen shows a little corruption, then black for a second, then a brief kernel error, then finally plymouth starts. From dmesg, I see that the error is this:

Code:
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315443] efifb: invalid framebuffer address
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315531] ------------[ cut here ]------------
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315535] WARNING: at drivers/base/core.c:228 device_release+0x9d/0xb0()
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315536] Hardware name: 2394CTO
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315537] Device 'efifb.0' does not have a release() function, it is broken and must be fixed.
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315541] Modules linked in:
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315543] Pid: 1, comm: swapper/0 Not tainted 3.8.13-gentoo #3
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315544] Call Trace:
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315547]  [<ffffffff813f0efd>] ? device_release+0x9d/0xb0
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315551]  [<ffffffff81039d0a>] warn_slowpath_common+0x7a/0xb0
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315553]  [<ffffffff81039de1>] warn_slowpath_fmt+0x41/0x50
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315554]  [<ffffffff813f0efd>] device_release+0x9d/0xb0
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315557]  [<ffffffff812bb75c>] kobject_release+0x4c/0xa0
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315560]  [<ffffffff81effcac>] ? efifb_probe+0x497/0x497
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315562]  [<ffffffff812bb61c>] kobject_put+0x2c/0x60
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315564]  [<ffffffff813f0ce2>] put_device+0x12/0x20
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315566]  [<ffffffff813f6c22>] platform_device_put+0x12/0x20
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315569]  [<ffffffff813f6c49>] platform_device_unregister+0x19/0x20
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315571]  [<ffffffff81efff35>] efifb_init+0x289/0x292
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315573]  [<ffffffff810001fa>] do_one_initcall+0x3a/0x160
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315576]  [<ffffffff81ed6ca1>] kernel_init_freeable+0x133/0x1bd
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315578]  [<ffffffff81ed65c2>] ? do_early_param+0x86/0x86
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315581]  [<ffffffff817dc0a0>] ? rest_init+0x70/0x70
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315584]  [<ffffffff817dc0a9>] kernel_init+0x9/0xf0
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315585]  [<ffffffff817fc72c>] ret_from_fork+0x7c/0xb0
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315588]  [<ffffffff817dc0a0>] ? rest_init+0x70/0x70
Jun 12 17:04:45 artemis kernel: [    0.315591] ---[ end trace 12eb6f5da7f978c9 ]---


The second blip is between plymouth and gdm. I've built plymouth-0.8.8-r1 with the "gdm" use flag, and gdm-3.6.2-r1 with the "plymouth" flag. Both purport to allow for a smooth transition (probably emulating http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/plymouth/2009-June/000126.html). This doesn't happen though, and I'm not sure if there's something I need to do manually.

There are also two other slight problems: plymouth doesn't run during anything other than boot - even ctrl-alt-del during boot will stop plymouth and just show the normal output; and there is no decoration for the vts after boot has completed.

Anyone got any ideas? :-)


Last edited by sdfg on Thu Mar 05, 2015 6:10 pm; edited 1 time in total
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simon_irl
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Joined: 07 Oct 2004
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Location: New Zealand

PostPosted: Sat Jun 15, 2013 12:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

afaik plymouth is broken on gentoo: last time i tried it (a few months ago, maybe), nobody had it working properly with a seamless, flickerless display from grub2 to the desktop. in fact, simply using kms with good old splashutils gives me a smoother startup and better results generally: the only visual break in the startup sequence is a momentary blank (black) screen when x11 fires up (slim here, rather than gdm).

splashutils with fbcondecor is great: remember that you can build mng animations into your boot splash themes, which means you can make them do just about anything, including mimicking your favourite plymouth theme. plymouth is cool on distros that are built around it, but on gentoo it doesn't provide a flicker-free startup as advertised, which imo makes it rather pointless: splashutils works better. i'm happy to be corrected, if someone can confirm that it's now possible, with gentoo's plymouth, to (a) boot from grub2 to the desktop with no visible breaks (mode changes or flickers between vt changes), and (b) see the plymouth theme when shutting down as well as when booting.
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sdfg
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 15, 2013 2:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Well that's sad to hear, given I did try splashutils and it monumentally failed - I had to use the livecd to go in and run grub2-mkconfig because something broke the system so hard that even editing out the line for the initramfs didn't work. :-(
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simon_irl
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 18, 2013 11:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

splashutils works fine; at least on all the intel, radeon and nvidia systems i've set up with it on x86 and x86_64 systems. remember *not* to follow the online guides if they tell you to use vesafb or uvesafb or whatever: the same kms you're using for plymouth works nicely with splashutils. you can use dracut to generate the initramfs, too. so, in your kernel you want framebuffer console support and support for the framebuffer console decorations; plus you need the kernel driver for your graphics card (e.g. nouveau for nvidia). once your kernel's properly set up, it's just a matter of finding/creating a splash theme for your screen resolution. i like to superimpose numbers on the theme background for all the virtual terminals so you can tell from your theme which vt you're on; and if you use the same image for your x background, it's pretty smooth and consistent graphically from grub to desktop. works better than plymouth, anyway.

there doesn't seem to be any way to avoid the flicker when x starts up, which is a pity. in theory it should be possible to stay on the console, launch the x server in another vt *without* switching to it, and then switch to it once it's fired up and drawn its background to the screen...which would make the whole transition from grub to desktop clean and seamless, as it is with plymouth on ubuntu and so on...but for some reason it isn't possible, or at least nobody seems to know how to do it. so you'll have to put up with a brief black screen while startx or the x display manager loads...but that's a fairly trivial cosmetic issue, and apart from that splashutils is very nice.
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