Grub 2: Add splash image to beautify grub 2
Yesterday I did a post on how to install grub 2 on Jaunty Jackalope machine. And I started getting comments that it was as ugly as it’s predecessor. And I could not agree more on that. Following which I started looking for way to pimp up grub 2 to look a little more eye candy. Let’s see how to get splash (background) image for your grub.
1. First we’ll have to download the splash image package for Ubuntu. Bring up a terminal window by hitting ALT+F2 and typing “gnome-terminal“. In the terminal window type the following command.
sudo apt-get install grub2-splashimages
2. This will install the splash image package. Let’s check what splash images are installed. These images can be found at:
/usr/share/images/grub/
On the terminal type the following command:
cd /usr/share/images/grub/ ls
You’ll see a list of available splash theme for grub 2.
The files are in .tga format which is a image format. Following is a thumbnail of all the files:
3. All you need is to zero down on the image you want to have as your grub splash image. I found them boring, so I created my own image.
- Using Gimp, I resized the image to 640×480 and saved it by name ubuntu-girl.tga (Unfortunately, that is the dimension supported by Grub 2. However, you can also use a larger dimension image but it’ll be cut at the Grub splash.
- I then moved the image to /usr/share/images/grub/
- Final image looks like this:
4. Now we have to tell Grub 2 to use this image. To do so, type the following command at terminal:
sudo gedit /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme
find the line
for i in {/boot/grub,/usr/share/images/desktop-base}/moreblue-orbit-grub.{png,tga}; do
and replace it with the following
for i in {/boot/grub,/usr/share/images/desktop-base,/usr/share/images/grub}/ubuntu-girl.{png,tga}; do
5. All that is left now is to update grub 2 . Type the following command on terminal
sudo update-grubGrub 2 will detect the new theme and you should see something like this
(This is a little old screenshot and here the background is named Aesculus hippo…. However it should be ubuntu-girl.tga)
All that is left now is to reboot the machine to check the new sexy grub 2 splash in action.
