Ubuntu 10.04 - Usplash to Plymouth By LucidBootExperience

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Ubuntu 10.04 has switched from using usplash to Plymouth for the boot splash screen, providing a flicker-free experience on Intel, NVIDIA and ATI hardware.. This specification details the foundation team plans for the technology for the Lucid Lynx boot experience, changing from using usplash to plymouth to provide the graphical splash screen while waiting for the boot to complete. The "look" and "theme" components are not covered here.

Rationale
The current boot experience is still jarring, with obvious flickers and transitions between the separate phases. These flickers are caused by three types of change:

• Mode switches where the actual resolution and/or colour-depth of the panel or monitor is changed


• Changing the console from text to graphics mode (or vice-versa), which inherently incurs a mode switch


• Switching the active Virtual Terminal (VT), which inherently incurs a console mode change


There are techniques which permit these to be eliminated as much as possible, building on the kernel mode setting GPU drivers added to the kernel in Ubuntu 9.04. While usplash can render to the framebuffer provided by those drivers, plymouth is far more developed and capable and gives us the wanted experience out of the box.

Learn more on wiki.ubuntu

Work Items


1. Add "no root" patch to X server package (BryceHarrington)
   
2. Add support for no root patch to X server driver packages (BryceHarrington)
   
3. Finish gdm patch to pass "-nr" (ScottJamesRemnant)
   
4. Apply gdm patch to package (SebastienBacher)
   
5. Patches for other display managers, such as gdm, need to be written (Community Teams)
   
6. Package plymouth (ScottJamesRemnant)
   
7. Replace usplash hooks in mountall with plymouth hooks (ScottJamesRemnant)
   
8. Add module alias to vga16fb and adjust link/module order (AndyWhitcroft)