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Table of Contents
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GRUB Splashscreen
These are the GRUB boot splashscreens I made. Personally I like them of course. Maybe you like them as well?
Most Debian-related themes are blueish (like e.g. 'moreblue-orbit'). I think blue is a very nice colour, but the combination of red, black and white in the Debian logo is also very nice. And because you don't see very much of that, I decided to use those colours for my splashscreens.
The logo used comes straight from the Debian website and is licensed! Please see the license notice1) and the section Debian Open Use Logo License on the Debian logos site about that.
More splashscreens and other (better than mine I guess) artwork like wallpapers etc. can be found at debianart.org.
GRUB 2
GRUB 2 has been around for a while and from version 6.0 (Squeeze) on this is the default bootloader in Debian GNU/Linux. So I made a new splashscreen for GRUB 2. The installation is quite easy. Make sure to follow these steps as root!
- Download the file Desktux-boot.tga to your computer.
- Put the file in a directory where GRUB can find it; e.g. in
/boot/grub.
- Edit the file
/etc/default/grub, find the line that containsGRUB_GFXMODEand edit it with a resolution your videocard and monitor support. For example:GRUB_GFXMODE=1680x1050
Maybe you'll have to unncomment that line. If there's a line like
GRUB_TERMINAL=consolemake sure to comment it!
To find out which modes are supported by your card hit<c>in the GRUB menu and typevbeinfo.2)
Add the following line for your custom background image (just add it anywhere, e.g. beneath the GRUB_GFXMODE row):GRUB_BACKGROUND=/boot/grub/Desktux-boot.tga
In this context (but unnecessary for the splashscreen to work) this parameter can be handy. Just add the line (if wanted) and GRUB will try to keep the mode for booting Linux:
GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=keep
- That's it already if you just want to set your own wallpaper. But I also want to change the menu colours so it matches the colours in my wallpaper. So edit the file
/etc/grub.d/05_debian_themeand find this line (it's pretty much at the end of the file):set_background_image "${GRUB_BACKGROUND}" || set_default_themeEdit it to match the following line.3) Defining “COLOR_NORMAL” and “COLOR_HIGHLIGHT” in
/etc/default/grubhas no effect as these variables get overwritten.set_background_image "${GRUB_BACKGROUND}" "white/black" "light-red/black" || set_default_theme
- Last but not least update the
grub.cfg:update-grub
All done, enjoy!
GRUB Legacy
GRUB Legacy is version 1 of the GRUB bootloader and no longer supported!
By the way: if you wonder why the BSD daemon is next to Tux, FreeBSD is just another OS on my computer.
Just download the file boot.xpm.gz and place it in the directory /boot/grub/ (as root of course).
Next, edit the GRUB configuration file (in Debian this is /boot/grub/menu.lst). Make sure the default colors from GRUB are either deleted or commented:
# Pretty colours #color cyan/blue white/blue
Next, add these lines just after the one you just deleted or commented:
# Nice logo splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/boot.xpm.gz foreground=000080 background=efb90e
Of course hd(0,0) is the first partition on the first HDD. You must change this if the directory /boot/grub is on a different partition on your system.
Enjoy!