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On my Thinkpad X230 using Intel integrated graphics with i915, I get a black screen on boot of elementaryOS 6 instead of plymouth. I can still enter my encryption password into the black screen and then I‘m greeted with the login manager shortly after.

First, i realized that kernel modesetting was seemingly disabled:

# cat /sys/module/i915/parameters/modeset
-1

I managed to enable it with

options i915 modeset=1

in /etc/modprobe.d/i915.conf and a subsequent update-initramfs -u. But plymouth still shows a black screen. I also added

i915 modeset=1

to /etc/initramfs-tools/modules and added i915.modeset=1 to my grub commandline parameteres. None of these help.

I have the following error message in my journal:

# journalctl -b 0 | grep plymouth
[...] plymouth: unexpectedly disconnected from boot status daemon

I also tried adding GRUB_GFXMODE with the native screen resolution in /etc/default/grub, but it didn’t help. Plymouth works fine on the same machine using Arch Linux. I’m out of ideas. Does anybody here have one?

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  • Modeset -1 means auto. The system will turn it on if it thinks it's a good idea. Do you have any other GPU in your system? What happens if you wait a little on that black screen, does the system boot finally?
    – Maccer
    Aug 11, 2021 at 8:38
  • @Maccer Thanks for the info. The system boots once I enter my encryption password into the black screen. I just realized that other plymouth themes work without issue and have simply grabbed the version of the theme from elementaryOS 5 from Github. This way, I have a working bootsplash now. I’ll file a bug report to the theme later.
    – Keno
    Aug 11, 2021 at 15:17

2 Answers 2

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This bug has to do with changes in the theme between the current and the last version of elementary. They changed the theme so that hardware manufacturers could display their logo during bootup. Apparently, my hardware doesn’t support this feature. I think it’s basically this bug: https://github.com/elementary/plymouth-theme/issues/14

So, my solution was to first clone this git repository.

$ git clone https://github.com/elementary/plymouth-theme

Then I checked out the version of the theme that was used in elementaryOS 5.

$ cd plymouth-theme
$ git checkout 5695a75d1ab37b65a5de23a5ededb0561ef53efd

Then I uninstalled the current version and replaced it with the new one.

$ sudo apt purge plymouth-theme-elementary
$ sudo cp -r elementary /usr/share/plymouth/themes

Finally, I had to install the theme.

$ sudo rm /etc/alternatives/default.plymouth
$ sudo ln -s /usr/share/plymouth/themes/elementary/elementary.plymouth /etc/alternatives/default.plymouth
$ sudo update-initramfs -u

After reboot, I have a working bootsplash.

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  • I was having the same issue as the original author, which plagued the entire install process of Odin. Hardware: HP ZBook 15u G6. Install USB wouldn't boot at all at first, just a black screen at startup. Added replaced 'quiet splash' with 'nomodeset' and it booted. Had to set nomodeset upon each (re-)boot after installing, otherwise I would just end up at a black screen. No splash on shutdown either. Followed Kenos suggestion here and added the old splashscreen from Hera and rebooted and everything was back to normal. No 'nomodeset' needed anymore.
    – Lars
    Aug 12, 2021 at 9:15
  • This did the trick for my battle worn Zareason laptop with the i915 chipset, thanks for the write-up.
    – Seth
    Aug 13, 2021 at 17:58
  • This sorted my Thinkpad X1 Carbon out a treat, thank you very much!
    – CT14.IT
    Aug 21, 2021 at 18:01
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Here's a simplified approach which will work even if the above mentioned git commit is no longer available (for some reason): https://github.com/swanux/plymouth_theme_elementary_legacy You can simply install the .deb file from the releases section, and it's ready to go.

Thanks to Keno's answer!

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