Plymouth is a bootsplash

Bootsplash

Bootsplash is a term for a graphical representation of the boot process of the operating system.Bootsplash can be a simple visualisation of the scrolling boot messages in the console, but it can also present graphics or some combinations of both....

 for Linux. It supports animations. It makes use of Direct Rendering Manager

Direct Rendering Manager

The Direct Rendering Manager is a component of the Direct Rendering Infrastructure, a system to provide efficient video acceleration on Unix-like operating systems, e.g...

 (DRM) and kernel-based mode-setting (KMS). It gets packed into the initrd

Initrd

In computing, initrd is a scheme for loading a temporary file system into memory in the boot process of the Linux kernel. initrd and initramfs refer to slightly different methods of achieving this...

.

Besides eye-candy, Plymouth also handles user interaction during boot.http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=9153814&postcount=30

It was first included in Fedora

Fedora (operating system)

Fedora is a RPM-based, general purpose collection of software, including an operating system based on the Linux kernel, developed by the community-supported Fedora Project and sponsored by Red Hat...

 10 "Cambridge" shipped on November 25, 2008 where it replaced Red Hat Graphical Boot (RHGB). Ubuntu

Ubuntu (operating system)

Ubuntu is a computer operating system based on the Debian Linux distribution and distributed as free and open source software. It is named after the Southern African philosophy of Ubuntu...

 includes it in the 10.04 LTS "Lucid Lynx" release shipped on April 29, 2010. Mandriva switched from splashy

Splashy

Splashy is a splash screen program for Unix-like computer operating systems , such as Linux and FreeBSD.Splashy was designed to replace Bootsplash. Unlike Bootsplash, it runs completely in userspace and therefore doesn't require any patches to the OS kernel...

to plymouth with version Adélie (2010.0).

External links

• http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/Plymouth
• https://launchpad.net/plymouth