Comment 9 for bug 348440

I'm not convinced that this was really entirely fixed. We do use usplash on shutdown, and of late we do so rather more reliably since usplash has been converted to use upstart (in usplash 0.5.39). However, starting usplash before X has switched back to its original console doesn't work properly, so we have to start it after the display manager has stopped, which means that there's a brief but noticeable flicker to text mode.

I'm not sure yet whether we can do anything about this for Karmic, but I'm going to keep it on the list for now. Scott, if you're not happy about this being assigned to you (since I know you have a lot on your plate with boot, let alone shutdown), feel free to reassign it to me.