Just to be sure, did you install 64-bit Trisquel 5 over 32-bit Trisquel 5 by
formatting the hard drive? Or did you update it somehow? Or did you install 5
64 over an older 32-bit?
I don't think 32-bit vs 64-bit has anything to do with it, though. It
corrupts on both 32- and 64-bit for me.
My theory is that Ubuntu changed something in 11.04 (Trisquel ~5) that was
not there in 10.10 (Trisquel ~4.5) which was the last time Plymouth worked.
One of those things are vt.handoff. Alternatively, it could be that around
that time some part of software frozen at that time introduced a regression
that has not been fixed as of Ubuntu 11.10.
Also, I don't think the GRUB background has an effect. Since I have only
Trisquel on the Thinkpad GRUB never shows for me so I have a black screen
until the corruption starts. I booted with SHIFT to force GRUB to show and
the only difference is that the GRUB image (I tested the default and a
custom) shows up until the corruption part.
With vt.handoff=7 present, when the corruption starts the GRUB image is
squashed and corrupted into the top half and the Plymouth splash squashed
into the bottom half. Though normally, my top half is black because GRUB is
hidden. This lasts until GDM displays.
Without vt.handoff, the GRUB image displays, then a quick flash of corruption
and then the working Plymouth splash for a few seconds until GDM displays.
However, this corruption is now of only the GRUB image, or black with a few
white lines in my case. It looks different compared to the corruption with
vt.handoff - specifically, the Plymouth splash does not get
squashed/corrupted with it. I wanted to take a photo but I cannot capture it
quickly enough. When you get the flash, does yours also look different to
what you get with vt.handoff present?
The reason that you are not seeing the splash with vt.handoff removed could
be because your computer is faster than mine and by that time yours is done
loading.
You can leave the FRAMEBUFFER line as it was. I have been unable detect any
difference, whether present or not.
To do the CTRL-ALT-F6 and F7 test you will have to put vt.handoff back in. I
cannot get it to switch when it's removed.
*
Fedora 16 came out about a month after Ubuntu 11.10 and it has a working
Plymouth animation on my Thinkpad. Fedora 16 has more up-to-date software so
it is possible that a newer version of Nouveau (or something else) might have
introduced a fix for this. Otherwise I will have to examine what really
happens at boot time and compare what Ubuntu and Fedora do differently, but
I'm sure if my knowledge is quite there yet.
