Plymouth or not? That is the question.

[swejap]

With the version of Linux Mint 10 Debian Edition the developers decided to remove plymouth because of it's instability with other graphics drivers than nouveau as I understand it. But is there more reason not to have plymouth installed on the system? Is the boot process faster without it?

taken from http://minitour.wordpress.com/

The promise of flicker-free startups has yet to be fulfilled. Plymouth remains a technology whose performance remains three steps behind expectations. And to be quite frank, there is a sense of purity in LMDE: looking at the boot process through terminal lines instead of a singular background with a logo. To each their own…

I'm very interested to hear your opinions.

well personally i think Plymouth needs more love if its ever gonna do what Redhat Devs made it for or they may as well continue using the old Redhat Graphical boot , just convert it into a KMS like boot thing.

[smr54]

I agree--not because of purity, but because all the graphic stuff of the last few years makes it harder to figure out what's going on, especially if there's a problem.

[sonoran]

I find it symptomatic of the direction fedora is taking generally - trying to
appeal to users who would rather watch a balloon fill up than see what
is going on with their computer.

[swejap]

Originally Posted by sonoran

I find it symptomatic of the direction fedora is taking generally - trying to
appeal to users who would rather watch a balloon fill up than see what
is going on with their computer.

That is how I feel as well and reason for this poll. Plymouth is nice and all, but just feels useless if no one can explain the functions of plymouth more than it's "pretty" boot up experience.

Originally Posted by swejap

That is how I feel as well and reason for this poll. Plymouth is nice and all, but just feels useless if no one can explain the functions of plymouth more than it's "pretty" boot up experience.

might find something here about it http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/Plymouth

[JamesNZ]

And besides that, who doesn't enjoy that geeky feeling looking at those incomprehensible boot messages?

[swejap]

Originally Posted by detox

might find something here about it http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/Plymouth

Thanks, will look more into it

Originally Posted by JamesNZ

And besides that, who doesn't enjoy that geeky feeling looking at those incomprehensible boot messages?

haha yeah I hit escape every time plymouth starts just to see those messages

[smr54]

Sonoran's comment is a common lament, but sometimes, I feel that it's only made by we folks over 25. (In my case, waaaaaaaaaaaaay over).

It's not just Fedora, of course, it's all the desktop distributions.

[glennzo]

kernel = /blah blah blah ............. vga=791

No rhgb quiet for me. No plymouth, no dodge, nothing but text

[sonoran]

Originally Posted by smr54

Sonoran's comment is a common lament, but sometimes, I feel that it's only made by we folks over 25. (In my case, waaaaaaaaaaaaay over).

It's not just Fedora, of course, it's all the desktop distributions.

It's dirty work, but someone has to do it.

There's no denying Plymouth is a neat coding accomplishment,
but one can wish that such talent was employed on something
more... useful.

Eye candy is still eye candy no matter how well it is done.

[swejap]

Originally Posted by glennzo

kernel = /blah blah blah ............. vga=791

No rhgb quiet for me. No plymouth, no dodge, nothing but text

Thanks for the tip, will use it as well. But I have one question. Is there a way to completely remove plymouth and it's dependencies without effecting the system more than that?

yum remove plymouth* give me this message

================================================== ==============================
Package Arch Version Repository Size
================================================== ==============================
Removing:
plymouth i686 0.8.4-0.20100823.7.fc14 @updates 177 k
plymouth-core-libs i686 0.8.4-0.20100823.7.fc14 @updates 172 k
plymouth-gdm-hooks i686 0.8.4-0.20100823.7.fc14 @updates 171
plymouth-graphics-libs i686 0.8.4-0.20100823.7.fc14 @updates 30 k
plymouth-plugin-fade-throbber i686 0.8.4-0.20100823.7.fc14 @updates 15 k
plymouth-plugin-label i686 0.8.4-0.20100823.7.fc14 @updates 6.8 k
plymouth-plugin-script i686 0.8.4-0.20100823.7.fc14 @updates 71 k
plymouth-plugin-space-flares i686 0.8.4-0.20100823.7.fc14 @updates 28 k
plymouth-plugin-throbgress i686 0.8.4-0.20100823.7.fc14 @updates 16 k
plymouth-plugin-two-step i686 0.8.4-0.20100823.7.fc14 @updates 21 k
plymouth-scripts i686 0.8.4-0.20100823.7.fc14 @updates 11 k
plymouth-system-theme i686 0.8.4-0.20100823.7.fc14 @updates 0.0
plymouth-theme-charge i686 0.8.4-0.20100823.7.fc14 @updates 3.5 k
plymouth-theme-fade-in i686 0.8.4-0.20100823.7.fc14 @updates 30 k
plymouth-theme-script i686 0.8.4-0.20100823.7.fc14 @updates 9.4 k
plymouth-theme-solar i686 0.8.4-0.20100823.7.fc14 @updates 351 k
plymouth-theme-spinfinity i686 0.8.4-0.20100823.7.fc14 @updates 18 k
plymouth-utils i686 0.8.4-0.20100823.7.fc14 @updates 12 k
Removing for dependencies:
dracut noarch 006-5.fc14 @updates 166 k
gdm i686 1:2.32.0-1.fc14 @fedora/$releasever
4.6 M
gdm-plugin-fingerprint i686 1:2.32.0-1.fc14 @fedora/$releasever
73 k
gdm-user-switch-applet i686 1:2.32.0-1.fc14 @fedora/$releasever
130 k
pulseaudio-gdm-hooks i686 0.9.21-7.fc14 @updates 385

Transaction Summary
================================================== ==============================
Remove 23 Package(s)

Those dependencies feels a bit insecure about. Is there a way to exclude them?

[jbkt23]

I just ran:
rpm -e --nodeps plymouth

and rebooted without any repercussions.

but you can just delete the kernel parameters rhgb and quite from the boot lines in grub.conf to get the equivalent effect as far as your experience at boot time.

[smr54]

Always be careful with nodeps. Sometimes, it can break something unexpected. It's also always possible that jbkt23 doesn't need some program you need.

As jbk said, (typed), however, you can also just eliminate the rhgb quiet parameter from grub. Fedora seems to notice this--that is, if I remove it from the default boot kernel, then upgrade the kernel, the new kernel doesn't automatically put in the rhgb quiet line.

[jbkt23]

smr54, I second that, but I knew if something broke I could reinstall plymouth.