found the reason ... it's about sddm autologin to a user that doesn't exist anymore. The login fails, but then sddm doesn't report an error message but simply hangs.
The condition is visible from /var/log/sddm.log [09:42:47.765] (II) DAEMON: Display server started. [09:42:47.785] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Starting... [09:42:47.785] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Authenticating... [09:42:47.795] (II) HELPER: [PAM] returning. [09:42:47.811] (WW) HELPER: [PAM] acctMgmt: Authentication failure [09:42:47.811] (WW) DAEMON: Authentication error: "Authentication failure" [09:42:47.812] (II) HELPER: [PAM] Ended. [09:42:47.815] (WW) DAEMON: Auth: sddm-helper exited with 1 Solution: disable sddm autologin or set it to a user that exists. For sddm it would be nice if it reported the condition as an error message instead of "Starting version 219". -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1432171 Title: [udev] Shows "starting version 219" boot message even with "quiet" To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/systemd/+bug/1432171/+subscriptions -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs