Skip to content

Warn before enabling Plymouth in the bootloader menu#4604

Merged
Torxed merged 1 commit into
archlinux:masterfrom
Softer:warn-plymouth-on-enable
Jun 28, 2026
Merged

Warn before enabling Plymouth in the bootloader menu#4604
Torxed merged 1 commit into
archlinux:masterfrom
Softer:warn-plymouth-on-enable

Conversation

@Softer

@Softer Softer commented Jun 28, 2026

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Contributor

When enabling Plymouth in the bootloader menu, show a yellow confirmation warning that lists the most common ways it breaks booting, and ask the user to confirm. When Plymouth is already enabled the user is only switching the theme, so the warning is skipped in that case.

The warning text:

Plymouth adds a cosmetic boot splash but can cause boot problems on some setups:

  • black screen with the NVIDIA driver
  • hidden password prompt with disk encryption (LUKS)

Would you like to enable it?

Why

Plymouth is purely cosmetic but is a frequent source of "system does not boot" reports, most notably a black screen with the NVIDIA driver and a hidden LUKS passphrase prompt (you cannot tell the system is waiting for your password). A confirmation step makes the risk visible before the user commits to it, while keeping the feature available for those who want it.

This follows the discussion in #4585, where a warning on selection was preferred over hiding Plymouth behind --advanced.

Notes

  • The warning only fires when going from disabled to enabled; theme changes are untouched.
  • New strings are added to base.pot.

Part of #4585.

Plymouth is purely cosmetic and a frequent source of boot breakage,
most notably a black screen with the NVIDIA driver and a hidden LUKS
password prompt. Show a yellow confirmation warning listing these risks
when enabling it; when Plymouth is already enabled the user is only
changing the theme, so the warning is skipped. Regenerate base.pot for
the new strings.
@Softer Softer requested a review from Torxed as a code owner June 28, 2026 17:28

@Torxed Torxed left a comment

Copy link
Copy Markdown
Member

Choose a reason for hiding this comment

The reason will be displayed to describe this comment to others. Learn more.

Fair enough to add a warning to Plymouth I recon.

@Torxed Torxed merged commit 12f2045 into archlinux:master Jun 28, 2026
11 checks passed
Sign up for free to join this conversation on GitHub. Already have an account? Sign in to comment

Labels

None yet

Projects

None yet

Development

Successfully merging this pull request may close these issues.

2 participants