Make your GRUB boot loader attractive

[yoshan]

Hi all,
This is something that I came across when I was just "tryiing things in linux". You might have notice that your GRUB boot loader (where u select the OS when machine is booting up) comes with a black background. But if u have worked in Mandrake like distros u have seen it has a rich colourful and attractive boot loader. So, this is to make your GRUB boot loader bit colourful and attractive.

First you have to get the images with the format supported by GRUB. Just install this package.

Code:

sudo apt-get install grub-splashimages

This will install images into /boot/grub/splashimages/.

Now cd to /boot/grub and locate the file menu.lst. First just create a backup of menu.lst file.

Code:

cd /boot/grub
sudo cp menu.lst menu.lst_backup

It is advisable to create a backup of menu.lst whenever you are going to edit it.
Now open the menu.lst with your text editor.

Code:

sudo gedit menu.lst

Enter the following code to the file.

Code:

splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splashimages/debsplash.xpm.gz

Here in this code (hd0,0) refers to the partition to which you have install ubuntu. For example you have only one hard disk and ubuntu is in partition 2 it should be (hd0,1).

That's all and it's done. Save the file and reboot. Enjoy

[kal]

Thanks yosh..!

and there are some more info abt this after installing grub-splashimages from

file:///usr/share/doc/grub-splashimages/README

Code:

Another method is to create in grub directory (usualy /boot/grub/) file
  named splash.xpm.gz and run update-grub


[yoshan]

hi kal,

I think in this case you need to link the splash.xmp.gz to a splash image. I'm not that sure abt it. Just check and update.

[kal]

yeap it can be a sym link or can be the actual file renamed to the splash.xpm.gz. and run update-grub. This is good when we don't have an idea abt the partition number.

[deco]

hey I tried this in Ubuntu 8.06 and failed as the repository did not exist.

http://www1.apt-get.org/search.php showed that the splashimages package is not available. any updates on this

regards

[kal]

Hey deco ! are u trying to do a offline install. Or r saying its not in the repo after trying
apt-get update; apt-get install grub-splashimages

Actually i don't think u need to install this package to get done thing. It contains some pretty pre-formated pictures. U can download some of those images from net and edit the menu.lst as shown by yoshan to get the thing done.

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