Stuck on Plymouth Boot Splash

[NUboon2Age]

My Lucid notebook is getting stuck on the Plymouth boot screen and never gives me the Gnome Display Manager (gdm) log on screen. It turns out the system is up because I can cntl+alt+F1-F5 to get to tty1-5 and log in and then restart the gdm with

sudo service gdm restart

and after things seem to be working okay, but i need help fixing this so it just boots up correctly.

----
Here's the two step fix:



In my case the real problem was that by mistake I had installed the kernel 2.6.32-23 (i had been fine with the 2.6.32-22 kernel) from the Kubuntu experimental repository and at least in my system it seemed to clash with the Plymouth boot splash option. The result was:

1. First when booting it came straight to the Grub2 recovery interface. The fix: boot w/ a 10.04 liveCD and run the grub-reinstall command to get grub to reconfigure itself. Ignore this step if it doesn't apply to your case. This was just the first layer of the problem...
   
   
2. Secondly it would stall on the Plymouth boot splash (note: The 'splash' option in the below described kernel boot option determines whether Plymouth is used) and never reach the Gnome Display Manager (gdm) logon screen. I could log in however by cntl+alt+F1-F6 and use a tty to work from the command line or the gui by doing a 'sudo service gdm restart'. I fix is to uninstall the 2.6.32-23 kernel header and image packages via Synaptic (and then I unchecked the Kubuntu experimental repository that I'd mistakenly installed from.
   
   I did a cntl+alt+F1 to get to tty1 and logged in and then restarted the gdm with

   sudo service gdm restart

   . Then I used Synaptics to uninstall all 2.6.32-23 kernel packages that I'd previously installed.
   
   The way I found out what the problem was and how to fix it was to:
   * hold down the shift key while booting, which brings up the Grub2 menu
   * move the cursor up and down with my arrow keys to select a given kernel to boot from
   * then type 'e' to edit whichever option I wanted to try, which brings up the Command options screen.
   * I tried with and without the 'quiet splash' options on that page
   * then type cntl+x to boot with whatever combinations of options I was trying.
   
   When I wanted to make the changes automatic (so I wouldn't have to make them through the Grub2 menu the way I explained above) and edit the /etc/default/grub file and put whichever kernel boot options I wanted into the line:
   
   GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="<options go here>"
   
   So for example:
   
   GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
   {gives you no boot feedback to the screen (quiet mode) and the Plymouth boot splash} This is the installation default.
   
   -OR-
   
   GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="splash i915.modeset=0"
   {gives you boot feedback to the screen (verbose mode), then Plymouth boot screen and the i915 modeset turned off}
   
   -OR EVEN-
   
   GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=""
   {verbose mode, no plymouth boot splash}
   
   and for me i tried i915.modeset=0 and it worked okay for my Intel display adapter, but i found it wasn't necessary so i went with
   
   GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="splash"
   {which gives me verbose mode plus the Plymouth boot screen}
   
   
   THEN IF YOU MAKE ANY CHANGES TO THAT FILE YOU MUST RUN:
   

   sudo update-grub

   for the change to take effect
   

Note: I'm sure at some point after the 2.6.32-23 kernel has been fully vetted and Plymouth and the other parts of Lucid have been appropriately upgraded to match it, the 2.6.32-23 kernel will work just fine with Plymouth and with my system. I just installed it before my Lucid system was ready for it.



Since I'm an Ubuntu newbie and don't really know my way around Ubuntu yet, there's no way I could have found these fixes without hours and hours of volunteer help from the Ubuntu Beginners Team and other folks on the #ubuntu, #kubuntu and (primarily) the #ubuntu-beginners IRC channels. People who helped include: ddecator, tenach, hobgoblin, pedro3005, geirha, kermiac, seidos, stlsaint, zkriesse, James147, win_2_linux and others (sorry if i forgot to mention your name here...). You guys rock!


A few more details:

• lspci:
  
  00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/PM/GMS/910GML Express Processor to DRAM Controller (rev 03)
  00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller (rev 03)
  00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 915GM/GMS/910GML Express Graphics Controller (rev 03)

  I didn't find anything in dmesg to give me a clue, except just noting which kernel was in use:
  

   
  [    0.000000] Linux version 2.6.32-23-generic (buildd@rothera) (gcc version 4.4.3 (Ubuntu 4.4.3-4ubuntu5) ) #37-Ubuntu SMP Fri Jun 11 07:54:58 UTC 2010 (Ubuntu 2.6.32-23.37-generic 2.6.32.15+drm33.5)

  I wasn't really able to pick up any firm clues from the boot.log, and Xorg.log, although maybe I could have if I were more knowledgeable.
  
  From the dpkg log here are what I'm guessing were the fateful entries:
  

  2010-06-26 10:18:50 status installed linux-libc-dev 2.6.32-23.37 
  {...}
  2010-06-26 10:28:41 install linux-image-2.6.32-23-generic <none> 2.6.32-23.37
  {...}
  2010-06-26 10:30:21 upgrade linux-generic 2.6.32.22.23 2.6.32.23.24
  {...}
  2010-06-26 10:31:24 install linux-headers-2.6.32-23 <none> 2.6.32-23.37
  {...}