Plymouth to GDM transition

[Ray Strode]

Hi,

On Fri, Feb 28, 2014 at 8:57 AM, Daniel Drake <drake at endlessm.com> wrote:
> On our Debian-based setup, during boot we're seeing that the plymouth
> animation finishes, then console log messages are displayed, then X
> launches and starts gdm. We'd like to have this transition smoother.
It sounds like "plymouth quit" is getting called.  try putting:

plymouth.debug=stream:/dev/kmsg

 on the kernel command line, and then running

journalctl -b -a -l

after boot.  That should give you an idea if GDM is starting before or
after plymouth quits.

> But I guess the functionality described there is controlled by the
> --enable-gdm-transition argument which enables deprecated code.
Nope, that's a badly named configure argument.  It should probably be called:

--enable-deprecated-gdm-transition

or just get removed entirely.  It's only there for backward
compatibility with really old GDM deployments.

> The commit message there says:
>     Most distributions no longer use this transition, which relies
>     on plymouth quitting before X starts.
>
> So plymouth quitting before X starts is now seen as dated? But isn't
> that exactly what plymouth-quit-wait.service enforces on a modern
> systemd setup?
Right, so I describe that a little bit in the URL you linked to.
plymouth should "deactivate" before it starts, but not "quit".  It
quits after GDM starts the X server.  i.e., gdm.service doesn't have a

After=plymouth-quit-wait.service

 in it.

It does have

After=plymouth-quit.service
Conflicts=plymouth-quit.service

But that just means it's surplanting plymouth-quit in the boot process
(since it quits plymouth on its own).

> Clarification much appreciated. How is this supposed to work at the moment?

order is something like:

plymouth-start.service
gdm.service
  /bin/plymouth deactivate
  /usr/bin/Xorg -background none vt1 :0
  /bin/plymouth quit --retain-splash

--Ray