usplash limited to 16-colours on amd64 (grayscale/black and white)

photo

another photo

The video card here is an ati x1600 xt

dmesg

 sudo lspci -vv > lspci.out

I can confirm this on AMD64.

Does the new usplash theme have a 640x400 version, as AMD64's usplash needs it.

Yeah, looks ugly here to, on amd64 and ati x800.

Hi

With today's usplash-theme-ubuntu 0.5 the progress bar appears on top of ubuntu's logo (at the top of the screen) and the colors are still black & white.

The same black/white usplash theme, and -- as of 23 October 2006 -- the progress bar at the very top of the page.
My system: AMD64 Edgy running on Opteron 165 processor with nVidia GeForce 6200 graphics hardware.

Same problems here, black & white and as of 23 october the progress bar is at the top. Resolution used (I believe), 640x480, default usplash.conf and Radeon x1400 board.

Why is it so hard? The last month usplash has changed from not displaying anything to displaying garbled images and now this. Windows does that since 1995 and I've never seen it not display its splash screen properly on any setup. There is something wrong.

Forgot to mention, Intel Core 2 Duo, 64-bit too.

I'm getting this, too. I have two Dell Precision workstations here with Nvidia Quadro cards. One has an Intel Core 2 CPU, and the other has an Intel Pentium 4. When I boot them with an edgy AMD64 CD, usplash exhibits the problem. When I boot with an edgy i386 CD, usplash displays perfectly. The monitors are connected via DVI cables and are the 2001FP and 2007FP respectively.

I am experiencing similar problems on an AMD64 Laptop: Compaq R3000z. It has a 1280x800 LCD panel and a GeForce4 420 Go.

During the boot up of the live CD the progress bar was at the very top of the screen and the image was gray. And have the same problem on the installed system.

Ever since the most recent fix, usplash's progress bar is in the right place.

However, the throbber breaks the right boundary of the bar and goes too far, resulting in an artefact shown in the attached screenshot. Notice how there is a ghost throbber on the right-hand side of the bar.

usplash's progress bar is in the right place but still black & white. Is this expected? It's an amd64 arch issue? The progress bar shows correctly here (i.e no ghost image, but somewhat crappy...)

Some problem. amd64 + nvidia.
Progress bar is at the very top of the screen.
:/

I have the same. amd64 on nForce 410 with intergrated gForce 6100. But progress bar below logo :)

+1 here. amd64 3200+ ATI graphics

Same here
upgrade from Ubuntu 6.06 to 6.10 with 'gksu "sh /cdrom/cdromupgrade"'

bi-Opteron on Tyan Tiger K8WE + Nvidia GeForce 7600

Me three ...

Additionally as I have a widescreen monitor (ViewSonic vx2025wm) I not only get the black and white colour scheme, it's all whacked out across the screen too. =/

This is with the released Ubuntu 6.10 amd64 Desktop live CD.

System is AMD64 X2 on nForce4. I've attached my lspci -vv output, because everyone else has, and I don't want to be left out.

Andrew S.

I think that there are enough "me too"s here, so could people stop doing this?

Only add more details if they are asked for.

i'm amd64 with nvidia geforce 6200 with new beta drivers installed - i've got the same silver looking logo but mine is real small in top left corner of screen cos i'm in 1280x1024 resolution - looks a real mess...

I noticed that this bug has been changed to say it only affects usplash-theme-ubuntu. I've also tried the Kubuntu splash and although it isn't black and white it is not displayed correctly and to my mind it look like the same bug which would indicate a bug in usplash not usplash-theme-ubuntu.

On Mon, 2006-11-06 at 17:11 +0000, John wrote:
> I noticed that this bug has been changed to say it only affects usplash-
> theme-ubuntu. I've also tried the Kubuntu splash and although it isn't
> black and white it is not displayed correctly and to my mind it look
> like the same bug which would indicate a bug in usplash not usplash-
> theme-ubuntu.

What is the bug in the Kubuntu splash? This bug describes the bug in
Ubuntu's theme being greyscale, if Kubuntu's is also greyscale, add
another watch to this bug. If it is different, file a new bug against
Kubuntu's splash.
--
Bruce Cowan <https://launchpad.net/people/bruce89>

this is more than just about colour - the resolution doesn't like quite right, slightly squashed and there's no progress bar showing loading up.

also the splash is in the top corner not center - it's a little crazy in lots of ways...

Any progress on this one?

It's a limitation of the platform. IIRC, only the first 16 colour palette entries are getting set.

Is this really a platform limitation -- why is amd64 not able to display it in colour when x86 can? As others have said, it's not just the colour; some of us have it squashed up into the top left corner and lacking the progress bar.

yeah this is something that should be fixed straight away, ubuntu edgy 64 is not ready for the world until this is fixed - you may laugh and say this is not important, and you may set the priority way down on this bug...

but this is the first thing of ubuntu you see when you boot, would windows have a microsoft logo all blitzed in a mess? who is gonna switch over to use ubuntu if it doesn't look professional, it can't look like a bodge job - people initially judge an os on the first things it gives them, a boot screen and it's looks, then if this looks ok they might try getting used to using the thing!

it's a shallow world, but i think the importance of this bug should be higher than low.

sorry for anyone not in agreement, but i do have to see this bug everyday when i switch on and have done for a long time now!

I'm in complete agreement that the priority should be upgraded. Granted that I rarely power off my machine and therefore don't see it that often it does nevertheless take away from the wow factor of ubuntu being sexy. It's actually one of the reason's I installed x86 on my parents AMD 64 bit machine, that and because the wireless drivers sucked ass but I digress...

I can confirm this also on edgy amd 64 and an ati x800.
Top left cornet positioining without progress bar and colours.

I don't really know C, but I was playing around with it a little bit. It seems like it shows the 640x400 splash screen, and that is the only resolution that appears black and white. Usplash just takes the first resolution in the list. I took all the resolutions out of usplash-theme-ubuntu.c except 1024x768, and it works fine for me now. If you want my temporary quick fix, I attached my modified usplash-theme-ubuntu.c file.

@cdenley

That doesn't work for me, I get no usplash at all at startup if I compile usplash-theme-ubuntu with your file.

Did you have to add 'vga=0x318' to the kernel line in menu.lst? I haven't tried this myself yet, though I will when I get home but that may explain the non-appearance of a splash screen if only the 1024x768 one if defined.

I set that on the defoptions line in menu.lst:

# defoptions=quiet splash vga=791

When I add "vga=0x318" to my menu.lst the splash works properly but now the terminals you can access with "CTRL+ALT+F1 - F6" are broken, they only show some random white lines all over the screen.

Same problem here (64bit edgy) - with GF 6600GT card. I had 32-bit edgy before (with exactly the same hardware) and usplash worked fine.

Same problem here, amd64. It seems that this bug has received "low" priority. I don't understand why, it seems like a quick fix, or am i wrong?

The same problem occurs on a machine with Intel G965 integrated graphics. The crudely patched usplash-theme-ubuntu.c posted by cdenley at http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=304673&page=2 fixes it for me.

I can't believe the priority for this has been set at "low". First impressions count, and this makes ubuntu look like a dog's breakfast. It's very disconcerting to experience this sort of thing when doing an install.

Hello all!
I have the same problem on a HP notebook DV6120, nvidia 6150, sempron 3400+.

I have solved with these instructions, that I have found on
http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=304673&page=4

========
Originally Posted by kleeman
Works for me. I updated the usplash package for amd64 with a version bump to 0.6.1 if anyone wants the deb:

http://www.yourfilelink.com/get.php?fid=234873

Install as usual with

sudo dpkg -i usplash-theme-ubuntu_0.6.1_amd64.deb
=========

Here's the text of the solution mentioned in the forums:

 Re: Black and White splash/loading screen
The problem seems to be with usplash showing the wrong resolution. It always seems to pick the first one in the list, which is 640x400. This is the only resolution which seems to show up black and white for me. The only way I can get the 1024x768 splash screen is to remove the other resolutions from the list in "usplash-theme-ubuntu.c". Grub boots into 1024x768, and usplash.conf is set to 1024x768, but it will still show the first resolution in the linked list in the top left of the screen. I don't really know C, but I attached my modified usplash-theme-ubuntu.c file which seems to work for me since it only uses 1024x768.

I just saw this on my AMD64 machine with ATI video card. Using the Feisty Fawn Herd 2 amd64 desktop cd. The scrolling bar also appears slightly off-center as well as black and white, but that could be because my LCD monitor didn't properly adjust to the resolution change.

Bug 71372 is a duplicate of this.

I can confirm this.
I have tried the same stuff on 2 identical HP xw8400 workstations with nvidia quadro graphics.
One I installed using i386 and the other using amd64.
The i386 one worked correctly but not the amd64. And I have reinstalled on both machines and switched i386/amd64 and I would definitely say that it is a problem on the amd64 one.

Just read the release notes for 6.10:

"All the improvements in usplash have begun to pay off, as the new theme landed. The usplash will now scale to larger screens and many different resolutions."

Nice improvements.

On Fri, 2007-01-19 at 20:23 +0000, dun wrote:
> Just read the release notes for 6.10:
>
> "All the improvements in usplash have begun to pay off, as the new theme
> landed. The usplash will now scale to larger screens and many different
> resolutions."
>
> Nice improvements.

It is fine on i386 though, which is what most people use. As per usual,
AMD64 gets secondary treatment, as usplash did support higher
resolutions on AMD64 early in the Edgy development cycle. At a later
point in the cycle, usplash didn't work at all. So instead of fixing
the code to work on AMD64, they disabled the higher resolution code on
AMD64, and we are left with this abomination.
--
Bruce Cowan <https://launchpad.net/people/bruce89>

I'm having this problem too, so I am signing up to this thread so I can find out when it's fixed.

Same here on a fresh Ubuntu feisty/herd2install, CPU is a Turion 64 x2.

I had the same problem as the original poster on an AMD64. Since a recent update, however, I don't have a splash screen at all anymore. The screen remains dark (with a blinking cursor in the top left corner) during startup and shutdown of the computer. Everything works fine, just the splash does not show up anymore.

On Tue, 2007-01-30 at 15:06 +0000, Holger Berndt wrote:
> I had the same problem as the original poster on an AMD64. Since a
> recent update, however, I don't have a splash screen at all anymore. The
> screen remains dark (with a blinking cursor in the top left corner)
> during startup and shutdown of the computer. Everything works fine, just
> the splash does not show up anymore.

I assume this is with feisty, as I have the same issue on feisty.
--
Bruce Cowan <email address hidden>

> I assume this is with feisty, as I have the same issue on feisty.

Yes, this is on feisty indeed, sorry for not mentioning it before. It is a Herd 1 installation, kept up-to-date with apt-get.

>> Since a recent update, however, I don't have
>> a splash screen at all anymore.

I've had this problem too. Solved inserting the string "vga=791" on the line that commands the boot on grub. You can

1) type 'e' when grub shows off, then type 'e' again on the line that commands the boot (not sure now, but I think is the second, well, is the bigger line!)

You will be allowed to edit the line, put on the end: vga=791

After that, <enter>, and then type "b" to boot.

...or...

2) go to /boot/grub and edit "menu.lst", inserting the same "vga=791"

best regards to all

With any luck this should fix it, assuming that Matthew's libx86 changes were correct. Note that you need the corresponding initramfs-tools update to avoid loading the vga16fb module on amd64.

usplash (0.4-36) feisty; urgency=low

  * Fix path in example theme Makefile (LP: #73005).
  * Depend on debconf.
  * Update usplash_write(8) to document TEXT-URGENT and PULSATE.
  * Switch to libx86, fixing svgalib on amd64 (LP: #67545).
  * Don't fall over if the bogl backend can't set the resolution, which
    won't be possible on several framebuffer implementations (LP: #81413).

 -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Wed, 7 Feb 2007 09:55:13 +0000

initramfs-tools (0.85eubuntu2) feisty; urgency=low

  * Don't load vga16fb on amd64 either. usplash 0.4-36 fixes things so that
    we don't need it (LP: #67545).

 -- Colin Watson <email address hidden> Wed, 7 Feb 2007 09:55:05 +0000

I confirm these updates fix the problem, I now have a nice colour usplash screen. Is it still limited to 16 colours and 640x400 on AMD64?

No, it should now happily use 256 colours.

Great now could some one please summarize all of the info needed to fix this problem

On Wed, 2007-02-07 at 18:11 +0000, Jonathan wrote:
> Great now could some one please summarize all of the info needed to fix
> this problem
>
Upgrade to feisty.
--
Bruce Cowan <email address hidden>

Jonathan: generally the effort is put in to making sure that issues are fixed in the next release of Ubuntu (once every six months). In this case that should be Ubuntu 7.04, due to be released in April.

The fixes for this particularly issue have involed fairly low-level changes to get around the restriction. Because of the low-level I suspect that it's unlikely to be easy (or safe) to backport the updates to earlier versions of Ubuntu that have already been released.

In this case, the issue is only seen on boot-up and does not affect actual operation of the machine once boot-up on an 'amd64' machine has completed. If there was data-loss involved, this would be a different case.

Hope that helps, I don't think you'll see if fixed on your existing machines, but you should see it after 7.04 is released!

Yes that does make sense. Thanks I am looking forward feisty's release even more!

Fix works well.

First, thanks to everyone involved in fixing that bug. It definitely does make ubuntu sexier ;) Good work.

Fix works here for the color issue (1920x1200, usplash.conf set to 640x480). But the progress bar is not centered and slightly to the right (about 50 pixels I guess). Should I split that into another bug report and take a picture?

On Fri, 2007-02-09 at 10:11 +0000, David Gerber wrote:
> Fix works here for the color issue (1920x1200, usplash.conf set to
> 640x480). But the progress bar is not centered and slightly to the right
> (about 50 pixels I guess). Should I split that into another bug report
> and take a picture?
>
Yes, report that as another bug.
--
Bruce Cowan <email address hidden>