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I recently updated my Ubuntu 12.10 setup to 13.04 using sudo do-release-upgrade.

After going through the process and rebooting, I was a little confused by the GRUB menu showing a "Kubuntu" option instead of "Ubuntu" as it usually did.

After choosing it, it then shows me a Kubuntu splash screen during the bootup (consisting just of a blue "Kubuntu"), but the subsequent login screen and desktop are fine.

I do have a KDE setup besides Unity (I had installed kubuntu-desktop way earlier when I was running 12.04), but I don't see why it should have affected the GRUB menu and the bootup splash screen!

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Wow that is really crazy :-) Since it is only the splash screen does it bother you? –  Freedom_Ben Apr 25 '13 at 19:37
@Freedom_Ben: Not really, although when I first saw the modified entry in GRUB, I was terrified that I'd lost my setup. –  shrikant Apr 25 '13 at 22:38
ubuntu + kubuntu-desktop is essentially kubuntu. –  arielf Apr 26 '13 at 21:38
if you are talking about the screens upto and including login - but not after that, then try removing kdm - i think you want lightdm –  pugelarouge May 25 '13 at 0:48

3 Answers 3

up vote 3 down vote accepted

Change Plymouth Splash Screen.

This is the initial splash screen you see at bootup. Different Plymouth themes can be found by searching for plymouth-theme in a Package Manager. Install a new one and manually select the theme you wish to use. The default Ubuntu theme is already installed.

sudo update-alternatives --config default.plymouth
sudo update-initramfs -u
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Great, this worked -- thanks! –  shrikant Apr 29 '13 at 13:07

Maybe you haven't removed kubuntu-desktop completely.

You can just remove the splash sudo apt-get remove kubuntu-artwork-usplash and start enjoying Raring Ringtail

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I just removed kubuntu-desktop, and all that did was uninstall a ~54 kb app, after which the issue still exists. kubuntu-artwork-splash doesn't appear to exist on my system, but in the login screen, I can still choose to log in to the KDE Plasma Workspace. –  shrikant Apr 25 '13 at 22:50
Note that removing a meta-package doesn't force removal of all of its "Depends" (prerequisite packages). Also: it doesn't remove config files. man apt-get for details. So by removing kubuntu-desktop you haven't really removed any actual packages. Try dpkg-query -f '${Depends}' --show kubuntu-desktop to see all its dependencies. –  arielf Apr 26 '13 at 21:50

Default value of variable GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR is set to
lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian by /etc/default/grub script while generating grub.cfg.

Check your /etc/default/grub.d/ directory for scripts which could overwrite this variable.

In my case it was /etc/default/grub.d/50_kubuntu.cfg which has been created by KDE Plasma Environment so I deleted it and generated grub.cfg again.

To solve this problem with GRUB, simply type into terminal:

sudo rm /etc/default/grub.d/50_kubuntu.cfg
sudo update-grub
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