How to Restore Ubuntu 11.04 Natty's Splash Screen

11:35 AM
Yesterday I installed the XFCE desktop environment, mostly to see how the project has been going along over the years since my last hiatus from Linux and also to give myself a quicker alternative to Gnome (I am running a netbook, after all). I was surprised today to find myself greeted by an old problem: I now had the Xubuntu splash screen at startup instead of the Ubuntu splash screen.

 

This was a little dismaying to me, especially since this now meant anyone unfamiliar with Ubuntu that saw my computer start up would now think it was called Xubuntu.

 

So I looked for the start-up manager, which used to allow one to change their splash screen. But either Ubuntu changed that or Linux as a whole changed that because that option is no longer there.

 

I also tried installing Gnome Splash Screen, but everything was greyed out. Starting it from the terminal turned out to be not as easy as $ sudo splash-screen or anything like that, so I figured there had to be another solution...

 

I found it.

 

If you are using Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Xubuntu, or any of the other 'buntu distributions and find yourself wanting to change the splash screen back to default after installing another desktop environment, just type this in to terminal:

 

sudo update-alternatives --config default.plymouth

 

Follow the instructions on screen.

 

Now why they had to make changing the splash screen so difficult is beyond me. I know for a fact there's no way I'm going to remember that combination of commands, especially since I don't mess with the splash screens often at all. However, there you have it. Hopefully Ubuntu will change this in the not so distant future.

 
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