Linux Silent Boot Config

Problem

• I would like to make the Linux boot process completely silent. However I still get console output like this:

lvmetad is not active yet, using direct activation during sysinit
lvmetad is not active yet, using direct activation during sysinit
/dev/mapper/<device>: clean, XXXXX/XXXXXXX files, XXXXXXX/XXXXXXXX blocks

• or

[   6.183744] intel_soc_dts_thermal: request_threaded_irq ret -22
[   6.189786] intel_rapl: no valid rapl domains found in package 0

• There can also be a flashing cursor if there isn’t any other output.

Hide Console output

There are really 2 things here, the console output and the blinking cursor. I’ll start with suppressing the console output:

• Edit /etc/default/grub
• Find the lines

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet"

• add the following command line arguments console=tty12 loglevel=0 rd.systemd.show_status=auto rd.udev.log_priority=3

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet console=tty12 loglevel=0 rd.systemd.show_status=auto rd.udev.log_priority=3"

• Then update grub

sudo update-grub

• console=tty12 - Move all non-kernel messages to console 12.

• loglevel=0 - must come after the quiet argument. This causes the output log level to be 0 (highest).

• rd.systemd.show_status=auto - disable systemd status messages on the console, auto will disable only successful messages, false will disable all of them.

• rd.udev.log_priority=3 - Disable printing the systemd version number.

• Kernel messages also need to be hidden, this can be done by adding or modify the file /etc/sysctl.d/20-quiet-printk.conf, and adding this line

kernel.printk = 3 3 3 3

Hide blinking cursor

If you can live with the blinking cursor it’s probably better than the following, however if you can’t…

Once you’ve hidden all the console output above, you are left with a blinking curosr at the upper left corner of the screen. So we can also remove that:

• Edit /etc/default/grub again.
• Add the argument vt.cur_default=1, this sets the cursor default to blank

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet console=tty12 loglevel=0 rd.systemd.show_status=auto rd.udev.log_priority=3 vt.cur_default=1"

• Then update grub

sudo update-grub

• vt.cur_default=1 - Disables the hardware cursor on boot.
• This is great for booting, however not so great when using the console, as the cursor is now gone. This makes things like editing the command line or a file pretty hard.
• To get the cursor back, save the current terminfo

$ infocmp > tmpterminfo.txt

• Edit tmpterminfo.txt
• Find cnorm= and add \E[?8c at the end (before the next comma)
• Find cvvis= and add \E[?8c at the end (before the next comma)
• Add a line at the bottom rs2=\E[?8c,is2=\E[?8c,
• Save
• Import the terminfo globally (leave out the sudo if you only want to modify the local user)

$ sudo tic tmpterminfo.txt

• We also have to add a command to re-initialize the terminal after login.

$ printf '\n\ntput cnorm\n' >> .profile