On Sat, 4 Apr 2020 at 21:23, Sam Varshavchik <mrsam@courier-mta.com> wrote:
This laptop boots with the spinfinity plymouth theme, and there's a white 
progress indication bar at the bottom of the display, progressing from left 
to right, during the boot.

That other laptop, over there, also boots with the spinfinity plymouth 
theme, but there is no progress bar. Spinfinity just spins on its own, and 
that's the only thing that happens, until the desktop comes up.

I compared the plymouth packages on the two laptops. The only difference is 
that the first laptop has plymouth-theme-solar theme installed, in addition 
to spinfinity; and all other plymouth packages are the same.

I'll try installing the solar theme on the other laptop, but I can't see 
that making a difference. The absence of the progress bar, on the 2nd 
laptop, is a Scooby-Doo mystery to me.



So cat  /etc/plymouth/plymouthd.conf   (any differences on two laptops, this one and THAT one ;) )
It sounds like you're seeing the text mode fallback progress bar?
https://jadelinux.net/images/boottheme/charge.png
Like that, confirm?