This post describes the steps to configure Plymouth on Debian when all partitions are encrypted with LUKS, except for the /boot partition. The plymouth-themes repository is used as a reference.

What is Plymouth?

Plymouth is an application that starts very early in the boot process (even before the filesystem is mounted) and provides a graphical boot animation while the startup process runs in the background.

It is designed to work on systems that have DRM modesetting drivers. The idea is that very early in the boot process, native modesetting is configured, and Plymouth uses this mode. This mode must be maintained throughout the entire boot process, even after starting the X graphical server. The main purpose is to avoid flickering during the startup process ¹.

Plymouth Installation

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sudo apt install plymouth

GRUB Modification

Edit the default GRUB configuration file:

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sudo nano /etc/default/grub

Modify line 9 by adding splash:

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GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"

Plymouth Themes

Clone the themes repository:

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git clone https://github.com/adi1090x/plymouth-themes.git

Navigate into one of the directories named pack_X, for example pack_3:

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cd plymouth-themes/pack_3

Select the theme you want, for example lone:

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sudo cp -r lone /usr/share/plymouth/themes/