Ubuntu – Startup/shutdown screen / grub changed after installing xfce

I did the same XFCE experiment and was also annoyed that the Xubuntu startup logo showed up even after I (supposedly) completely uninstalled XFCE.

Pavan's answer hints at the solution that I eventually discovered. Note that my solution was done in Ubuntu 12.04 (probably works for other versions, but YMMV):

These files control are where Ubuntu gets it's start up sequence resources:

/lib/plymouth/themes/default.plymouth
/lib/plymouth/themes/text.plymouth

However, they are actually symlinks to two more symlinks which point to the actual source files:

/etc/alternatives/default.plymouth
/etc/alternatives/text.plymouth

So the solution is to delete the /etc/alternatives/ links and point them at the original ubuntu resources. Open a terminal and execute these commands:

> cd /etc/alternatives
Check out where these alternatives links are pointing to:
> ls -la *.plymouth

Remove these intermediate links (in /etc/alternatives):
> sudo rm default.plymouth
> sudo rm text.plymouth

Create new links to the original Ubuntu resources:
> sudo ln -s /lib/plymouth/themes/ubuntu-logo/ubuntu-logo.plymouth default.plymouth
> sudo ln -s /lib/plymouth/themes/ubuntu-text/ubuntu-text.plymouth text.plymouth

You should also remove the Xubuntu resources for good housekeeping:

> sudo rm -rf /lib/plymouth/themes/xubuntu-logo
> sudo rm -rf /lib/plymouth/themes/xubuntu-text

After doing all that, try rebooting and you should see your familiar old Ubuntu start up logo.

Answer 1: From the terminal, run xfce4-mixer or even easier, if you have the speaker icon on your panel (i.e. which you can easily add to your panel if it's not there, just right-click on the panel and move around, it's not hard) right-click it, chose to run the audio mixer, make sure you are on the playback tab. Your master, headphone and speaker levels should be un-muted and high enough for you to listen to anything.

The problem is that when you mute your volume again, only the master responds reasonably. But the speaker and headphone levels get muted and never back to un-muted. So I have to manually un-mute the headphone and speaker levels.

I tried a solution which didn't work for me, but may be for others. It's about sudo editing a file: /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf and append this line to it: options snd-hda-intel model=laptop-eapd, then reboot, but this didn't work for me.

I'm using a Dell Inspiron SE 7520, Ubuntu 13.10, Xfce 4.12.

Answer 2: Log out of Xfce, log in using Unity, un-mute your voice (This is the trick. I found my sound muted on Unity). Logout and login again using Xfce.

What still bothers me, is that when I muted the sound on Xfce, the problem occurred again. No sound at all even if I un-mute it while I'm still on Xfce !