Fixing Plymouth (boot splash) in Ubuntu 10.10 aka. Maverick Meerkat

If you’ve recently installed Ubuntu 10.10 and have installed Nvidia and/or ATI drivers — or installed ubuntu under emulation — you’ll end up with a (butt) ugly splash screen. In my case under parallel 6.0 I ended up with a text boot screen that just read “Ubuntu 10.10″……Ughhh. Here is a quick tutorial on how to get a nice splash restored. This procedure also works in 10.04. Keep in mind that I’m doing everything with 1280×1024 screen size. your mileage might vary (ie: you might want 1024×768). You’ll need to get a terminal session opened for this:

• Get the nice splash screen installed

  sudo apt-get install v86d

• Edit your grub config file and add the following

  sudo vi /etc/default/grub

• Look for this line:

  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

• and replace it with this (note: 1280×1024 screen res…..your mileage might vary):

  GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nomodeset video=uvesafb:mode_option=1280x1024-24,mtrr=3,scroll=ywrap"

• Still in the same file look for this line:

  #GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

• and replace it with this (note: 1280×1024 screen res…..your mileage might vary):

  GRUB_GFXMODE=1280x1024

Your /etc/default/grub file should look like this once you’re done (partial screenshot):

• Save the file and issue the following command to start editing /etc/initramfs-tools/modules file:

  sudo vi /etc/initramfs-tools/modules

• The file should be mostly commented out. At the end of the file insert the following line (note: 1280×1024 screen res…..your mileage might vary):

  uvesafb mode_option=1280x1024-24 mtrr=3 scroll=ywrap

Your /etc/initramfs-tools/modules file should look like this once you’re done:

• Save the file and issue the following command:

  echo FRAMEBUFFER=y | sudo tee /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/splash

• Finally issue the following two command to update grub:

  sudo update-grub2

  sudo update-initramfs -u

Reboot and Enjoy :-)