I agree that black background is a better idea - and not just because I like black, but because of objective reasons, too.
1) With the many CRT screens that have not been adjusted for low resolutions (i.e. all resolutions besides the one the user normally employs for their desktop), a non-black background will make the problem much more evident, while with a black background, if the adjustments are not too bad, you're likely to not even notice that the splash screen is slightly uncentered. 2) With LCD monitor, as has been said, it's possible that the background is not rescaled, which results in an ugly picture. 3) Currently, there can be times during startup and shutdown when the splash screen goes briefly out. If the background is black, this is barely noticeable. Not so if it's colored. 4) Even if the boot process was fixed so that the splash screen always remain visible, the BIOS screen is usually still black, and the X.org screen is black before the display manager is loaded. So, a black background still makes for a smoother continuum. -- Placeholder Theme is a Regression https://launchpad.net/bugs/66107 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs