How can I show or hide boot messages when Ubuntu starts?

Question

Is there a way to easily turn on/off showing the boot messages (loading the services) when Ubuntu starts? Is it something in Grub2?

I am running 10.04.

For one-time solution (not a permanent change), see https://askubuntu.com/a/25024/250300. — Melebius, Mar 12 '20 at 13:23
Does this answer your question? [How to enable boot messages to be printed on screen during boot up?](https://askubuntu.com/questions/25022/how-to-enable-boot-messages-to-be-printed-on-screen-during-boot-up) — Melebius, Mar 18 '20 at 13:26

score 116 · Accepted Answer · edited Aug 02 '16 at 13:57

You would need to edit the file /etc/default/grub. In this file you'll find an entry called GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT. This entry must be edited to control the display of the splash screen.

The presence of the word splash in this entry enables the splash screen, with condensed text output. Adding quiet as well, results in just the splash screen; which is the default for the desktop edition since 10.04 (Lucid Lynx). In order to enable the "normal" text start up, you would remove both of these.

So, the default for the desktop, (i.e. splash screen only):

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash" #Hide text and show splash

For the traditional, text display:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=        #Show text but not the splash

For the splash, but the ability to show the boot messages by pressing Esc:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="splash"

Or, finally, for just a (usually) black screen, try:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=quiet   #Don't show Ubuntu bootup text
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="console=tty12" #Don't show kernel text

After editing the file, you need to run update-grub.

sudo update-grub

For more details, see this: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2

How can you read that messages that are shown after you removed the `splash` from GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT? I can see the messages now when I start, but then X starts and they are gone. — rubo77, Mar 31 '14 at 12:00
`GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT` and `GRUB_TIMEOUT` causes confusion don't understand why they keep two of these settings and displays the error `Warning: Setting GRUB_TIMEOUT to a non-zero value when GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT is set is no longer supported` — Denis Denisov, Jun 02 '15 at 00:15
@rubo77 The dmesg command: http://superuser.com/questions/176165/where-linux-places-the-messages-of-boot — George Marian, Jul 15 '15 at 22:21

score 32 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 29 '10 at 08:28

32

I may be out of subject, but you can just press "escape" during boot, to show/hide the plymouth splash screen...

answered Jul 29 '10 at 08:28

Little Jawa

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By "easily turn on/off", I think it's just what he/she wants. – Rodrigo Carvalho Jul 29 '10 at 11:01
Does that work on 10.04? – Jim Jul 29 '10 at 13:51
Yes. I actually tested it on both Lucid Lynx Desktop and Netbook editions before posting :-) – Little Jawa Jul 29 '10 at 13:54
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It works only if grub is not quiet, i.e.: `GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="splash"` – sup May 15 '11 at 09:01

score 10 · Answer 3 · answered Sep 24 '12 at 05:50

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There's a simple way of hiding all boot messages. In /etc/default/grub, adjust the following:

GRUB_TIMEOUT=0 # Do not show the GRUB menu at all
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=quiet
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="console=tty12" # Redirect the kernel output to another tty

After that, just sudo update-grub, and it should be done.

answered Sep 24 '12 at 05:50

jweyrich

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Doesn't work anymore in 18.04 – LucaM Jun 05 '18 at 11:17
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`console=ttyS0` does seem to work in 18.04, I found that as answer to my own question. I may do some more research on it later on, though. See https://askubuntu.com/q/1085629/295286 – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy Oct 20 '18 at 21:26

score 6 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 14 '18 at 19:39

If you remove quiet option from GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT to show boot messages it's sometimes necessary to also set loglevel option to higher value. Otherwise some drivers may flood your tty with notice messages. I use this line to enable boot messages:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="loglevel=4"

This way only significant system messages will be printed to the console.

score 3 · Answer 5 · answered Jul 29 '10 at 02:47

You didn't identify whether you are on a server system or desktop, so I'll address both.

If you add splash to /etc/default/grub/ in GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT, Ubuntu will present you with a splash screen, either a simple text based progress bar or graphically via plymouth, which I describe below.

Using plymouth, a graphical startup animator, you can provide a pretty bootscreen that is well suited to desktop machines. You might not want to do this on a server, but it's up to you.

sudo apt-get install plymouth-theme-ubuntu-logo

score 2 · Answer 6 · edited Nov 11 '11 at 01:34

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I use GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="noplymouth" to tell my laptop to not show me the startup picture but the boot messages … still works for 11.10

edited Nov 11 '11 at 01:34

Kris Harper

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answered Oct 15 '11 at 08:31

manfred

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How can I show or hide boot messages when Ubuntu starts?

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