Why does Ubuntu show boot messages when starting up?

Question

When I boot Ubuntu or Fedora, they show a black screen with a bunch of [OK] messages for startup processes.

It seems like an old style DOS system. Nowadays, iOS and Windows don't show those terminal-like results. Elementary OS doesn't show it (most of the time) either.

Can I hide them in Ubuntu?

The answer to this question doesn't work in my case because my /etc/default/grub already has GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" but it still shows the boot text.

Output of apt-cache policy plymouth | grep Installed:

Installed: 0.9.2-3ubuntu17

Here's my /etc/default/grub

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash acpi=force"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

Update 7 Mar 18:

After running:

sudo apt-get clean, apt-get autoremove, apt-get update, apt-get upgrade

The result is the same: First Ubuntu boots with the logo and 5 loading dots Then, the screen show these: (a lot of them)

...
[ OK ] Started CUPS Scheduler.
<more yidi yada>
[ OK ] Started Run anacron jobs.
[ OK ] Started ACPI event daemon.
[ OK ] Started Set the CPU Frequency Scaling governor.
       Starting Hold until boot process finishes up... any system changes.pp link was shut down.

Then Ubuntu shows login screen with username.

Also:

$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure -a
[sudo] password for user: 
Unknown option: a
Usage: dpkg-reconfigure [options] packages
  -u,  --unseen-only        Show only not yet seen questions.
       --default-priority   Use default priority instead of low.
       --force          Force reconfiguration of broken packages.
       --no-reload      Do not reload templates. (Use with caution.)
  -f, --frontend        Specify debconf frontend to use.
  -p, --priority        Specify minimum priority question to show.
        --terse         Enable terse mode.

$ sudo dpkg-reconfigure plymouth
[sudo] password for user: 
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)
update-rc.d: warning: start and stop actions are no longer supported; falling back to defaults
update-rc.d: warning: start and stop actions are no longer supported; falling back to defaults
Processing triggers for initramfs-tools (0.125ubuntu12) ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-4.13.0-36-generic

Solution 1

short answer: yes! :) you can customize Ubuntu or Fedora whatever way you like. I don't know what version you are running, but under any normal installation i believe plymouth should be installed.

Plymouth is the application which provides the graphical "splash" screen when booting and shutting down an Ubuntu system.

There is an entire Wiki on this topic on the ubuntu website here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Plymouth I think the reason yours is not working is because either the kernel is not set up to use plymouth correctly, or your grub bootloader was set up to boot the os in text-mode.

Another issue i've encountered before myself, is that my Ubuntu wasn't shut down properly, which causes it to boot in a system check, and that also shows the terminal output.

Solution 2

Those fancy OK/FAIL messages that you see are actually boot messages that are output to TTY1 during the boot process.

To answer your question, that technically is not a shell, but a separate program, namely the systemd init system that puts out those messages.

You can hide those messages but i need to look it up. Since i never hide it, i like it actually.

Edit :

To hide those messages edit the /etc/default/grub

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

Change these lines :

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=quiet   #Don't show Ubuntu bootup text
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="console=tty12" #Don't show kernel text

Update grub :

sudo update-grub

Instead of hiding use a splash screen to cover it up.

Using plymouth, a graphical startup animator, you can provide a pretty bootscreen that is well suited to desktop machines.

sudo apt-get install plymouth-theme-ubuntu-logo

You will find a how-to on this link : Boot your Linux silently

Comments

[Viet]

$ apt-cache policy plymouth | grep Installed Installed: 0.9.2-3ubuntu17

[pomsky]

You can set GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=quiet (and then sudo update-grub) as suggested in the accepted answer to the duplicate question.

[Viet]

Thank you @pomsky, unfortunately, that also didn't work. After editing the grub and updating it. Instead of showing the Ubuntu logo then a bunch of [OK] boot text, now it shows a bunch of [IBUS] boot text, no logo, then the login screen.

[Peter Quiring]

With Ubuntu 18.10 there are many [OK] messages even after logging in. Very annoying, so unprofessional.

[Viet]

and by the way, do you know how to hide the boot text? i have GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" but the boot text is still there every time.

[Glenn van Acker]

where exactly did you put that parameter? i believe this has been answerred here: superuser.com/questions/44280/hiding-the-boot-up-text-in-ubu‌​ntu

[Viet]

They don't work. The only thing that is changed is the logo, now it's the name of the version of my Ubuntu. All the boot text is still there.

[Viet]

Hi @Glenn van Acker. Thank you for the suggestion. However, in my case: $ sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst shows an empty file.

[An0n]

Have you followed that link ? Also change the line that outputs to another tty as i did in my answer.

[Glenn van Acker]

that is very strange, can you try running a grub-update?

[Viet]

I have, but it doesn't make much sense to me. It doesn't say which file I need to edit those values.

[Viet]

yeah. i have run grub-update. after that, I undo all those changes and ran grub-update again, now it's back to square one.

[Glenn van Acker]

can you post your grub config file?

[Viet]

I've added my grub config file above

[Glenn van Acker]

hmm, grub config seems fine, but you can try adding this: GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="console=tty12" as specified by an0n can you upload your plymouth config file too?

[Viet]

I did add console=tty12 but it didn't work: it replaced the ubuntu logo with text of ubuntu version and the boot text is still there.

[Viet]

It seems like there's no plymouth config file on my machine. $ sudo cat /usr/share/initramfs-tools/scripts/init-top/plymouth cat: /usr/share/initramfs-tools/scripts/init-top/plymouth: No such file or directory $ sudo cat /etc/init/plymouth.conf cat: /etc/init/plymouth.conf: No such file or directory

[Glenn van Acker]

try apt-get clean, apt-get autoremove and then update and upgrade. if that fails, maybe you should run sudo dpkg-reconfigure -a. if plymouth has no configuration file, it's perfectly possible that it's not configured in the kernel either, which could explain why it's not showing on boot

[Viet]

Thank you @Glenn van Acker. It just shows plymouth partly (I guess) because when the system boots, it shows the Ubuntu logo with 5 dots, after that, it shows boot text like [ OK ] started ... It's not really a bug so I can live with that.

[Glenn van Acker]

what kind of messages is it still showing? it could be that this has something to do with acpi, because if the system is not shut down correctly, or it is configured to do a systems check on boot, it will probably show those messages.

[Viet]

I'll have to take a photo then type them. I'm in the middle of developing a website. Will running those apt-get clean and apt-get autoremove mess up the dependencies I have on my computer. From what I read, it seems to do so.

[Glenn van Acker]

They will not mess up dependencies, they will clean the apt-cache and remove packages you don't need.

[Viet]

I've run the commands you suggested and edited my question above. It'll be difficult to read the code if I paste it here.

[Glenn van Acker]

can you just try running sudo dpkg-reconfigure plymouth?

[Viet]

that also doesn't work. I posted the outcome of the command above.

[Glenn van Acker]

are there any broken dependencies on your system? is it up to date? There seem to be problems that are unrelated to plymouth itself. Also, the -a parameter of sudo dpkg-reconfigure should work and should reconfigure any unconfigured packages. I asume you're running ubuntu 17? did you upgrade using dist-upgrade, or reïnstall?

[Viet]

I don't know if there is any broken dependency. Yes, I'm using Ubuntu 17, it's up to date and I installed it from a USB.

[Glenn van Acker]

if you run sudo apt-get upgrade it should tell you wether you have broken packages or missing dependencies

[Viet]

Thanks, Glenn for all your help. I think we should wrap this topic up and move on. The "issue" I have doesn't affect the OS performance so I will leave it as it is.