# Plymouth and UEFI without GRUB2. How to?

## g-virus

Hello everyone! I'm trying to setup the plymouth on my UEFI laptop and it's not working. I have installed sys-boot/plymouth package and OpenRC-plugin. I have also chosen a theme and disabled rc_interactive. Also disabled a Boot Logo. Well I guess I've done everything according to Gentoo Wiki. But the Plymouth doesn't work, I still see text-mode but without the logo. What should I do more? I don't have any bootloader. my system loads from /boot/EFI/Gentoo/linux,efi file

Thanks in advance

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## charles17

How did you create the initramfs?

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## g-virus

 *charles17 wrote:*   

> How did you create the initramfs?

 

I don't have it actually

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## charles17

 *g-virus wrote:*   

> I don't have it actually

 

Do you think plymouth works without initramfs?

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## g-virus

 *charles17 wrote:*   

>  *g-virus wrote:*   I don't have it actually 
> 
> Do you think plymouth works without initramfs?

 

I thought so actually because I don't need the initramfs and I thought it is an optional way. So I guess I will have to setup it? Does it work without grub, lilo etc?

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## charles17

Reading https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/Plymouth/ might give you an idea. Unfortunately the Gentoo wiki article is not very clear about the requirements.

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## g-virus

 *charles17 wrote:*   

> Reading https://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/Plymouth/ might give you an idea. Unfortunately the Gentoo wiki article is not very clear about the requirements.

 

Well ok, I've installed the initramfs by dracut. 

Config file /etc/dracut.conf.d/initramfs.conf

```

hostonly="yes"

dracutmodules+="plymouth"

```

the img-file was generated successfully, 12M size. 

I've also added it to EFI according to this article https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/EFI_stub_kernel so seems like everything is ok, but still no Plymouth during the boot.

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## g-virus

Any ideas, guys?

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## charles17

 *g-virus wrote:*   

> the img-file was generated successfully, 12M size. 

 

And is it used at all?  Or are you booting without your new initramfs?

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## g-virus

 *charles17 wrote:*   

>  *g-virus wrote:*   the img-file was generated successfully, 12M size.  
> 
> And is it used at all?  Or are you booting without your new initramfs?

 

 *g-virus wrote:*   

> 
> 
> I've also added it to EFI according to this article https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/EFI_stub_kernel
> 
> 

 

I'm not sure I could add successfully wrong  :Smile:  Probably my UEFI doesn't work with external initramfs files. If I rename the initramfs will my laptop fail on boot? If yes I will try it[/quote]

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## charles17

 *g-virus wrote:*   

> Probably my UEFI doesn't work with external initramfs files. ...

 

This should be tested, of course.  But why not try internal initramfs ( did I tell you the link )?

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## g-virus

 *charles17 wrote:*   

>  *g-virus wrote:*   Probably my UEFI doesn't work with external initramfs files. ... 
> 
> This should be tested, of course.  But why not try internal initramfs ( did I tell you the link )?

 

I didn't try the internal variant because I don't know how to enable it correctly with non-grub-like booting so I've tried the external variant first

I've tried to delete the initramfs file /boot/efi/gentoo/initramfs.img and the system doesn't boot so the external file works good. Any ideas?

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## g-virus

Probably it is a reason of the problem - I use official nvidia drivers (nvidia-drivers package). Could Plymouth stop work because of these drivers?

I've tried to run these commands to test Plymouth

```

# plymouthd

# plymouth --show-splash

```

A screen has fade to black, I can see a login prompt but I cannot enter login/password so I have to switch to another terminal and restart X server.

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## tberger2

For some reasons I use a custom initramfs (busybox) made by myself. Does anyone use plymouth/UEFI not created by dracut? If yes or somebody knows, what files are needed and what has to be added to the init script?

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## g-virus

I have to up the topic because I'm close to the solution.

What have I done now:

1) Recompiled the nvidia proprietary driver with uvm use flag.

2) Added quite splash parameters to the EFI kernel command-line string in the kernel configuration menu (Processor's Type and Features)

Now Plymouth "works". But I can see only an ugly gray splashscreen with ugly dark-gray squares with '?'-signs on center. And this shit is animated. No idea what is happening, but I've tried to change a theme and the splash does not change.

Also I have tried to debug this by call this commands

```

(first terminal)#: plymouthd --no-daemon --debug > log.txt

(another terminal)#: plymouth show-splash

```

but I still can see the ugly gray splash.

Also I have tried to change the kernel parameters to splash plymouth:debug but I can't find any plymouth error messages.

Please your ideas guys

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## charles17

 *tberger2 wrote:*   

> For some reasons I use a custom initramfs (busybox) made by myself. Does anyone use plymouth/UEFI not created by dracut? If yes or somebody knows, what files are needed and what has to be added to the init script?

 

Are you using the directory approach or the initramfs_list approach?  I am having directory for EFI stub kernel but without plymouth.

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## tberger2

 *charles17 wrote:*   

>  *tberger2 wrote:*   For some reasons I use a custom initramfs (busybox) made by myself. Does anyone use plymouth/UEFI not created by dracut? If yes or somebody knows, what files are needed and what has to be added to the init script? 
> 
> Are you using the directory approach or the initramfs_list approach?  I am having directory for EFI stub kernel but without plymouth.

 

I use the directory approach.

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## charles17

 *tberger2 wrote:*   

> I use the directory approach.

 

So I guess you would need to add some of the plymouth stuff compiled with USE=static-libs and maybe add something to the init file.

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## tberger2

That's what I did. I got it work on a busybox shell but for some reason it didn't start while booting. Been a while, maybe I'll try it again.

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