Hello
I am trying to speed up the old laptop and i possibly found something that seems to slow it down but i dont understand what it is and also if i can remove it.
Ubuntu 25.04 gnome
This plymouth thing seems to be a problem or maybe i am wrong i am technically challanged so …
Your PC/Laptop - is it 2008/2009 vintage?
Yes hp elitebook 6930p with a ssd installed.
Edit: so do you know what this is ? i dont really understand it and hope it can be removed or turned of orsomething?
Older PCs run more comfortably with Xubuntu or Lubuntu.
Try Xubuntu 24.04 or Lubuntu 24.04.
Or even Kubuntu should run decent on your hardware.
well apparently the only difference between those de and the heavier ones is ram usage and energie consumption so i don’t see the point seeing those two areas is not where my problem lies as ubuntu runs mostly just fine.
Edit: so any idea about the plymouth thing or any unusual you can see in the screenshots?
Plymouth draws the logo on the screen while booting, it is not unusual that it stays active for the duration of the boot process until the login screen comes up…
(The quit-wait service is the thing that stops it before the login screen comes up)
So i put this command ‘‘quit-wait’’ in the terminal and that removes the logo screen ?
It is not working i tried sudo apt quit-wait service ?
i get this message Error: Invalid operation quit-wait
That’s not how it works, It’s a scripted-static service:
systemctl mask plymouth-quit-wait.service
Result after reboot:
systemctl status plymouth-quit-wait.service
○ plymouth-quit-wait.service
Loaded: masked (Reason: Unit plymouth-quit-wait.service is masked.)
Active: inactive (dead)
systemd-analyze blame | grep plymouth
55ms plymouth-start.service
30ms plymouth-read-write.service
Err, no, you don’t want to stop the service that stops the bootscreen else it will keep running when the login screen starts… If you suspect the bootscreen logo to have any impact on anything (which is extremely unlikely), then you drop the splash keyword from your kernel commandline in /etc/default/grub and run the update-grub command…
But again, it is extremely unlikely that this has any impact on your boot speed, that service simply waits until the first part of your boot is done, it doesn’t do anything beyond listening for a signal and shutting down the logo screen when it finishes… (And beyond this your boot will look a lot more ugly without it)
Posted some things here.
I also change to remove quiet splash on linux line. You then see boot process rather than the logo screen, And usually replace quiet splash with noplymouth boot parameter in /etc/default/grub. & then update grub.
sudoedit /etc/default/grub
GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=menu
GRUB_TIMEOUT=3
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=‘Kubuntu’
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT=‘noplymouth’
sudo update grub
In my experience the ouput of systemd-analyze critical-chain almost never points to the real culprits. Focus on the graph if you really need to squeeze that second or 2 from your boot time, and cross-reference the graph with the output from journalctl -b. But, as a “nontechnical user”, I wouldn’t.
That’s not how it happens on my end???
If the service is active, it means the Plymouth boot screen is still waiting for the boot process to finish.
systemctl status plymouth
○ plymouth-quit.service - Terminate Plymouth Boot Screen
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/plymouth-quit.service; static)
Active: inactive (dead)
But I do agree with the change to grub for safety reasons.
You do know there are many ways to do the same.
Mine is still masked, with zero side effects. (YMMV)
@ogra is not real familiar with me yet, nor are you for that matter.
He is also right in saying masking services is a bit risky. If you don’t know what your doing and why.
I offer only things I’ve done beforehand, nothing is guess work unless I write that I’m guessing.
Also 1 size dose not fit all, meaning just because I do something doesn’t make it a good idea for all.
Yeah, I didn’t express myself very clearly (but that service is anyway hard to describe, it needs to start and keep running to stop something… 
), you want it running from early boot until the boot process hands over to the graphical target for the display-manager …
What I meant is that masking it is definitely not a good idea because then you force plymouth to crash because the display-manager steals the display from it (which on a normal Ubuntu might end up with an apport crash report you will then be presented with after login)
To the OP if you followed my suggestion, you can revert the mask with:
systemctl unmask plymouth-quit-wait.service
Removed '/etc/systemd/system/plymouth-quit-wait.service'.
Check if it’s running
systemctl status plymouth-quit-wait.service
○ plymouth-quit-wait.service - Hold until boot process finishes up
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/plymouth-quit-wait.service; static)
Active: inactive (dead)
It’s best to reboot after.
systemctl status plymouth-quit-wait.service
● plymouth-quit-wait.service - Hold until boot process finishes up
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/plymouth-quit-wait.service; static)
Active: active (exited) since Sat 2025-04-26 09:53:44 MDT; 19min ago
Invocation: a9186560b1ee470f9928aced39184a71
Process: 4784 ExecStart=/usr/bin/plymouth --wait (code=exited, status=0/SUC>
Main PID: 4784 (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Mem peak: 1.6M
CPU: 6ms
I’ll leave mine masked, personal choice:
systemctl list-unit-files --state=masked
UNIT FILE STATE PRESET
alsa-utils.service masked enabled
cryptdisks-early.service masked enabled
cryptdisks.service masked enabled
hwclock.service masked enabled
plymouth-quit-wait.service masked enabled
saned.service masked enabled
sudo.service masked enabled
systemd-rfkill.service masked enabled
x11-common.service masked enabled
zfs-import.service masked enabled
zfs-load-key.service masked enabled
systemd-rfkill.socket masked enabled
12 unit files listed.
Guys its gotten confusing in here so i dont turn of the plymouth thing ?
If you look at the screenshots you will see plymouth takes the longest time to load atleast according to the commands.
but there is also a black screen that shows after the bios screen that lasts 15 seconds however i already made a thread for this but nothing came out of this.\
Also looking at the screenshots i made you guys see nothing wrong with start up?
because the numbers don’t add up in terms of startup time.
Edit: on a unrelated note i updated 2 days ago it was a single package but i didnt bother to look at the name and after that my snaps open up like a second faster and also my computer boots up half a second faster.
any idea what that package was that i updated ?
I am sorry I was not watching your system update. I always watch mine, so if new issues, it have an idea what to start looking at.
You can review logs to see packages updated.
Did you change the grub entry as in post 11? or look at the link on other suggestions?
What you were trying to do initially was to only turn off one part of plymouth, it has multiple systemd units (some in the initrd) and you tried to turn off the one that makes sure it doesn’t conflict with the rest of the system (which can cause other problems)… If you want to turn off plymouth, turn it completely off in grub like described above, not just the final part of it (Which would keep it permanently running until it crashes itself or crashes other bits of your system)
oke so on my pc it looks different from what was posted in the screenshot above ? do i need to copy it exactly as what oldfred posted ?
also clicking that link see qoute above
i already have the latest bios
i dont want to delete snapd.
i disabled the network thing?
i did the mask bolt service
disable unused devices give me the following message
sudo apt-get purge fwupd
does this remove snapd ? i got all these error messages freaked me out anyway i cancelled it i dont want to remove snapd.
how do i do this?
Edit: and seriously thanks for all the help
Edit2: So i just restarted my laptop and doing just those commands i did seems to have already shaved of 5 seconds of the boot time very impressive!!!
so i wonder what is going to happen once the plymouth thing gets dissabled.
To turn off plymouth you want to remove the word splash from the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT= variable … just that word, do not remove the quotes " from the line … after this you call the command sudo update-grub and plymouth will be turned off.
If you want to turn it on again (if you find it did not speed up your boot) you do the exact opposite, add the word splash back where it was in that file and re-run sudo update-grub and your splash screen (plymouth) will show the logo during boot again.
