ubuntu-logo theme doesn't wrap long messages

[Mario Limonciello]

Binary package hint: plymouth

In attempting to port some scripts from usplash to plymouth, I can't find any way to show extended messages on the screen. I expect that either they would wrap, or I'd be able to output multiple lines at the same time, but neither is happening.

Here's the command I used for test reference:
$ sudo plymouth message --text="this is gonna be a very very long message. i want to see what happens when plymouth gets such a long message. can it handle it? Lets see. Come on you can do it. Show the whole message"

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Tue Jan 19 08:41:13 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha i386 (20100105)
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia wl
Package: plymouth 0.8.0~-7
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-10.14-generic
SourcePackage: plymouth
Tags: lucid
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-10-generic i686

[Daniel Richard G. (skunk)]

Is this only a particular theme that isn't doing the wrapping, as opposed to plymouth itself? This is affecting the default Lucid startup screen when it asks "F to attempt to fix the errors..."

See the attached screenshot, taken in a small-ish VirtualBox window.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

Yes, it's the plymouth theme that's responsible for text placement.

[Giles Weaver (gweaver)]

I have what could be a related issue, where the text appears to be wrapped back over itself.
I think the text is the same or similar to that in Daniels screenshot, but with one line of text superimposed over another.