Plymouth text mode splash invisible on Mint 17.1 Rebecca (upsets full disk encryption). [With Fix].

[gav]

1) Mint 17.1 Rebecca (64 and 32 bit):

2) Plymouth text mode (splash) has invisible text during boot. This makes the prompt for passphrase for full disk encryption disappear. (It is possible to drop back to non-plymouth text prompt by hitting escape).

Plymouth text mode is used by Nvidia and AMD users who have the proprietary drivers installed.

To easily reproduce on any system (including those with kernel mode setting graphics, even without full disk encryption):
- Add "vga=normal nomodeset" to kernel boot parameters.
- Watch boot process, only the green dots are visible, no readable text.

*) To fix:
- Edit (as root):
/lib/plymouth/themes/mint-text/mint-text.plymouth
- Change incorrect line:
white=0x000000
to:
white=0xFFFFFF
- run (as root):
update-initramfs -u

Note: This affects multiple users, as found here:
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=206&t=184264

[gav (gavin-q)]

/lib/plymouth/themes/mint-text/mint-text.plymouth is a part of the mint-artwork-common package. I could not find this on the mint git repos to report the bug there.

Probably more correct to run (after patching file):
dpkg-reconfigure mint-artwork-common

rather than (as first described):
update-initramfs -u

[gav (gavin-q)]

Arrrrrgh .... this breakage was intentional !

From /usr/share/doc/mint-artwork-common/changelog.gz :

  mint-artwork-common (1.8.4) rebecca; urgency=medium

    * Switched plymouth text theme to black (hide version and syslog err flood: version isn't centered, and syslog err is in syslog, partial/incomplete and irrelevant to most users in plymouth)

   -- Clement Lefebvre <email address hidden> Fri, 07 Nov 2014 23:17:57 +0100

[Andrew French (french-andrewl)]

Hat tip to you, sir!

[Clement Lefebvre (clementlefebvre)]

Fixed in mint-artwork-common 2.0.9.