The plymouth-quit-wait.service is part of the Plymouth boot splash screen architecture. Its primary purpose is to hold up the boot process and wait for Plymouth to properly exit before allowing the system to continue. On headless Ubuntu Servers where a graphical boot splash is completely unnecessary, this service can unnecessarily delay boot times. This guide explains how to completely disable and mask the service.
Prerequisites
You must have root or sudo privileges on your Ubuntu Server. This guide is particularly useful for servers where graphical environments and splash screens have been stripped out.
Disable and Mask the Service
Stop the Running Service
If the service is currently active, stop it using systemctl:
sudo systemctl stop plymouth-quit-wait.serviceDisable the Service
Prevent the service from starting automatically during the boot sequence:
sudo systemctl disable plymouth-quit-wait.serviceMask the Service
To ensure it cannot be invoked by other dependencies, mask the service so it points to /dev/null:
sudo systemctl mask plymouth-quit-wait.serviceVerify the Configuration
Run systemctl status plymouth-quit-wait.service to confirm the service is masked and inactive. You can also reboot the server and check systemd-analyze blame to ensure the service is no longer contributing to boot delays.