I've noticed since openSUSE 10.1 right up to openSUSE 11 Beta 3 that Grub flashes contents from /boot/grub/menu.1st during the initial boot. I want the graphical boot like other distros. I have tried 'splash=silent' but it does not work. Is there an echo off command so that I only see the graphical boot? This anomaly only happens with openSUSE? Any ideas?

In your menu.lst file, do you have a line similar to:
"gfxmenu (hd1,10)/boot/message"
Is it commented out with a hash mark (#)
If you have this entry, do you have a file in your /boot directory named "message"?

If this doesn't help, post your entry from menu.lst for opensuse.

I have the "message" file in my /boot directory.
Adding a hash mark (#) before the gfxmneu entry disable the graphical menu.

After selecting the openSUSE entry from the menu by pressing the 'enter key', a quick flash in console mode appears - then the green bootsplash.
I would like to press the 'enter key' and have the 'green bootsplash' appear immeadiately.

The following appears in console mode -very briefly before the bootsplash:

root (hd0,9)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25.3-2-pae root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD5000AAKS-_WD-WCAS85664685-part10 resume=/dev/sda3 splash=silent showopts vga=0x31a
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.25.3-2-pae

I'm beggining to think that the problem may be in the Suse theme found in the /etc/bootsplash/themes folder.

Here's my menu.1st

# Modified by YaST2. Last modification on Mon May 19 13:11:39 EDT 2008
default 0
timeout 8
gfxmenu (hd0,9)/boot/message

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: linux###
title openSUSE 11.0 -- Beta 3
root (hd0,9)
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.25.3-2-pae root=/dev/disk/by-id/scsi-SATA_WDC_WD5000AAKS-_WD-WCAS85664685-part10 resume=/dev/sda3 splash=silent showopts vga=0x31a
initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.25.3-2-pae

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: Ubuntu 8.04, kernel 2.6.24-16-generic (/dev/sda1)###
title Ubuntu 8.04 -- Hardy Heron
root (hd0,0)
configfile /boot/grub/menu.lst

###Don't change this comment - YaST2 identifier: Original name: openSUSE 10.3 - 2.6.22.17-0.1 (/dev/sda5)###
title openSUSE 10.3 -- 64-bit
root (hd0,4)
configfile /boot/grub/menu.lst