Purple start screen - no splash screen

After installing Ubuntu 11.10 on a new computer everything worked fine for a few weeks and now suddenly when starting up Ubuntu I get a blank purple screen with no "Ubuntu" splash and the 5 dots but the system does start up.

What has happened to loose the Ubuntu splash screen?

Also, I've checked in the Grub startup and it has quiet splash in the Linux line.

I have an ATI Radeon 5450 graphics card which needed nomodeset to be added to the Grub line when booting for the first time off the install CD but now this line has disappeared from the grub startup.

Can anyone help?

After searching and searching online I've found the answer to this problem and the solution is quite simple.

Apparently it's because the graphic drivers don't load quickly enough during the booting sequence so by the time the graphic drivers are ready booting has almost finished and thus either no plymouth screen is shown or a very quick fast of it is seen.

So the solution I found and it works is to add a simple line to the following file.

gksu gedit /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d/splash

then add:

FRAMEBUFFER=y

Save the file, and then :

sudo update-initramfs -u -k all

This command will update the initial ramdisk containing the drivers needed by the kernel at boot time. The parameter -k all updates all of them if you have more than one kernel installed. Reboot and all is well.

This works in ubuntu 12.04 too.

Hope this helps anyone who is missing the lovely Ubuntu boot screen.