If you use Fedora 10 (or a later version), you may have heard that there is a new graphical boot sequence using something called
Plymouth. But if you see this kind of tri-color bar, then Plymouth is using its fall-back mode in the absence of a kernel mode setting display driver.
To get beyond this fail-safe mode, you can add a mode setting yourself. To test it out, you can just add something like
vga=0x318 to the initrd line right from the boot menu in grub. From the boot menu, press "Tab" to edit and you can modify the command. For example:
The
vga=0x318 is a reasonable default (1024 x 768); look
here for alternatives like
vga=0x314.
If you get it right, the boot sequence should look more like this ... the Fedora call-out fills up during boot and pulses before the login prompt appears.
If you're not a fan of the filling call-out, there are other themes available. Search for
spinfinity and you'll find how you can use
plymouth-set-default-plugin to use a different theme. Here's the
how-to that helped me set up the solar theme.
