How to fix plymouth (splash screen) in all Ubuntu releases!

Here is a solution to address the problem of no plymouth (splash screen) in Ubuntu after an nVidia proprietary driver installation. It doesn't matter what Ubuntu version you use, it should work anyway.

Open your terminal and type

sudo apt-get install v86d

Then

sudo -H gedit /etc/default/grub

Find this line

#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

and change for this one (of course choose your resolution)

GRUB_GFXMODE=1440x900
GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep

Note: You can try GRUB_GFXMODE=1440x900x24, but beware of specifying the color depth. You must specify a supported value. If does not work then rather delete it. More information in the manual.

Also note: older Nvidia graphics cards require the GRUB_GFXMODE property in the format <width>x<height>-<depth> (e.g. 1920x1200-24, but not 1920x1200x24).

Save file and type in terminal

echo FRAMEBUFFER=y | sudo tee /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/splash
sudo update-initramfs -u
sudo update-grub

It worked for me in all Ubuntu versions. Give it a try :)

If the above solution does not work, check that the $vt_handoff is used in the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file

In the file, search the line beginning with :

linux   /boot/vmlinuz ...

in the appropriate section of the boot menu (e.g. first occurrence of this line if you want to restore splash screen for the first grub menu boot option) and make sure that this line ends with

... quiet splash $vt_handoff

Here is the example in my case (commented line replaced by second line), replace the xxxx by the existing UUID of the boot partition :

#   linux   /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-24-generic root=UUID=xxxx ro   nmi_watchdog=0
    linux   /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-24-generic root=UUID=xxxx ro   quiet splash $vt_handoff