Plymouth boot screen with three dots (again)

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1

Sorry I don’t want to bother anyone but I have just installed F41 from scratch and when it boots I am not shown the usual “Fedora rotating thingy”, I get a grey screen with three dots, same as:

Plymouth boot screen with three dots

Problem is I have got Intel.
I did not have any problem with F39 (current) and F40 (at the time it was relased, I don’t know if something changed later).

My configuration is:

System Details Report

Report details

  • Date generated: 2024-10-29 17:27:51

Hardware Information:

  • Hardware Model: Dell Inc. Inspiron 15-3552
  • Memory: 4.0 GiB
  • Processor: Intel® Celeron® N3060 × 2
  • Graphics: Intel® HD Graphics 400 (BSW)
  • Disk Capacity: 500.1 GB

Software Information:

  • Firmware Version: 4.0.13
  • OS Name: Fedora Linux 41 (Workstation Edition)
  • OS Build: (null)
  • OS Type: 64-bit
  • GNOME Version: 47
  • Windowing System: Wayland
  • Kernel Version: Linux 6.11.5-300.fc41.x86_64

I know it is not much but I would like to fix or work around the issue if possible.
Thanks.

2

Same thing keeps happening with me too.

3

Press ESC so that you can see the messages from systemd and the kernel.
What do you see the system is doing?

4

I see the normal booting sequence.
It is difficult to say because it goes by fast but it seems there is nothing wrong, everything looks normal besides the fact that plymouth doesn’t show the usual spinner, I guess it is the “fall back mode”.
On a side note, the spinner is shown when I shut down.
I looked at the logs, I can’t find anything related but I don’t know what I am looking for.

5

Your issue is the plymouth theme is not used?

6

My issue is exactly the same as the old post from June 2023 linked above.

7

Can you please give the following information:

sudo grubby --info=vmlinuz-6.11.5-300.fc41.x86_64

ps
fixed command

8

I think should be sudo grubby --info=vmlinuz-6.11.5-300.fc41.x86_64 because he install fedora 41

1 Like
9

sorry true!

10 
index=0
kernel="/boot/vmlinuz-6.11.5-300.fc41.x86_64"
args="ro rootflags=subvol=root rhgb quiet $tuned_params"
root="UUID=bad88cfe-af90-461e-b94e-5e1a6e8e549d"
initrd="/boot/initramfs-6.11.5-300.fc41.x86_64.img $tuned_initrd"
title="Fedora Linux (6.11.5-300.fc41.x86_64) 41 (Workstation Edition)"
id="bb4d4cfde5bf46b8a1093937c670e1f0-6.11.5-300.fc41.x86_64
11

2283839 – Fedora 40 KDE - Boot animation not working properly

Please re check the comment from Hans while reading link above:

Hans de Goede 2024-07-12 19:35:02 UTC

1 Like
12

Before posting here I did read the old posts but see:

“1. With older AMD GPUs the radeon driver is actually used…”

“2. If the amdgpu driver is actually used on your PC…”

It doesn’t help since I have got an Intel GPU, as showed above.
Intel® HD Graphics 400 (BSW)
No Radeon either AMD here.
Maybe I don’t understand something but it seems the issue is more generic.

13

The plymouth.use-simpledrm kernel parameter workaround might (should) work for Intel GPUs as well. I’d give it a try.

Edit: If someone is using a legacy BIOS system, simpledrm won’t work. In that case, I’d suggest running sudo plymouth-set-default-theme -R details to have the system show the systemd startup logs as it boots. (Plymouth will still be enabled and should still be able to prompt for passwords/keys to unlock LUKS if needed.)

14

No it is not that old, the EFI trick should appy but resetting the grub parameters is a try that can make my PC unusable and I am not confident I can recover from it without having to reinstall. These days I don’t have a spare PC so it would be very inconvenient.

IMHO if the issue comes from some race condition or time out related to the GPU driver loading too late for Plymouth it looks like it is going to get worse in the future and should be addressed. The post I linked above comes from June '23.

1 Like
15

There is an idea to make simpledrm the default. I don’t know if it is really being worked on or not though.

16

Let me repeat that: For now there are no plans to implement this idea so if you believe you would be impacted by such a change: Nothing is going to change.

Dead end.

It seems I am stuck with the Microsoft dilemma, either stay with outdated software that is not supported any more (see F39) or buy a new computer, which would be annoying when the only real reason is the boot “spinner”.
It would be annoying to be forced into good old Debian.

17

I understand your hesitation about editing the boot parameters. The sudo plymouth-set-default-theme -R details workaround is completely safe. That wouldn’t look as nice as the boot animations, but I think it would be better than those three dots. (Some “power users” even prefer that detailed mode because it informs them if any services are failing on system startup. That can be important on some systems such as servers.)

18

Yes, I am considering it.
Just in case, how can I revert to the default settings (given I get the desktop)?

Edit:
Of course I don’t know if it is possibile but it seems to me that Plymouth aims to boot as fast as possible. Isn’t there any way to make it stop and wait until everything is properly loaded? I would not mind to add like 5 seconds.

19

Added f41, plymouth, workstation

20

I forget what the default theme is (it might vary depending on what Spin you’ve installed). plymouth-set-default-theme without any parameters should show you what your theme is currently set to. Then, to revert, just rerun that command with your previous theme name as the parameter.

Edit: Oh, I forgot that you need -R when changing the theme. I’ll update my earlier post. (See the man page for details.)

Edit2: FWIW, there is also an old Fedora Magazine article about changing the Plymouth theme: How to change the Plymouth bootup theme - Fedora Magazine