Guide Linux/Ubuntu/Fedora Create custom boot screen Grub

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Since I started a new thread for people to show off their custom boot screens for Grub, I decided to write a tutorial so that anyone that did not have one could make their own.

Please add your custom boot screens here when you are done :)

This is really really easy... don't let the length of this guide fool you.. I tried to cover all bases so it looks like a lot... for most people it is just a matter of creating image and editing a line in grub.

Important - This Guide assumes that your Grub is located in /boot/grub, if the location differs on your system, input the location of Grub from your system into the guide wherever /boot/grub is used.

for example if grub is installed on your system in/myboot/grub, input /myboot/grub wherever you see /boot/grub in this guide.

If you do a search with Google you can find tons of boot screens already out there, to download. If you download your own, skip to "Editing pre-existing splashimage code in menu.lst " further down the page.

After image editing, I will also include instructions for how to edit your menu.lst to add the information to grub.

Making Image
1st - Importing your own pic/image or making one from scratch.

1.)
If you have an image you want to use, open it in Gimp and resize to 640x 480 (Image CANNOT be larger than this) and skip to 3.)VERY IMPORTANT - this image can only contain 14 colors

or

2.)
Open up Gimp and make a new image size 640x480 (Image CANNOT be larger than this)VERY IMPORTANT - this image can only contain 14 colors

Fiddle around and make your image

3.)
When finished, save your image as splash.xpm (or anything you want, but use .xpm extension)
4.)
open up a terminal window, navigate to directory where you saved splash.xpm and type in

Code: 
 gzip splash.xpm
(or yourname.xpm if you didn't name your image splash.xpm)

as root copy/move this image to

/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz (or yourname.xpm if you didn't name your image splash.xpm)

Code: 
sudo mv /myfolder/splash.xpm.gz  /boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
(replace myfolder with the name of the folder where you saved your image)
Image is done... now to edit your grub boot config file

Editing pre-existing splashimage code in menu.lst
open up terminal window and type

Code: 
 sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
look for a line that says something like

Code: 
splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/myfile.xpm.gz
now change the name of myfile.xpm.gz to the name of the file you copied to Grub earlier.

Adding splashimage code to menu.lst

If your Grub does not contain something like

Code: 
 splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/myfile.xpm.gz
AND when you boot you just get a black screen with white text, you will need to add this line before the Linux root and kernel lines in the boot options area.(see following instructions) This means you do not have a splashimage aleady setup in your menu.lst

if your /boot/grub is in the root directory...look at the line that says something like the following (this is an example, yours is likely to differ)

Code: 
 title Red Hat Linux 9 with kernel (2.4.20-8)
    root (hd0,0)
    kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/
    initrd-2.4.20-8.img
note the root drive and partition, in this case
(hd0,0)

In Linux the first drive is always hd0 not hd1 and the first partition starts with 0 not 1 therefore the 1st hard drive will be (hd0,0)

now type in
Code: 
splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/myfile.xpm.gz
before kernel boot lines... in the boot options section. (see example following)
Code: 
 title Red Hat Linux 9 with kernel (2.4.20-8)
     splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/myfile.xpm.gz
     root (hd0,0)
     kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/
     initrd-2.4.20-8.img

Change the name of myfile.xpm.gz to the name of the file you copied to Grub earlier.

(replace(hd0,0) with your drive and partition)

lastly you should also see a line that says
Code: 
#hidden
if it looks like above you are set to go, if it looks like below, add #
Code: 
hidden
(this will allow grub to go straight into boot screen rather than giving you a count down and forcing you to hit a key to get to boot splash.

Presto... your done

Please add your custom boot screens here when you are done :)
 
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Click to expand...
try to use the code like this
Code: 
title Red Hat Linux 9 with kernel (2.4.20-8)
root (hd0,0)
splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/Grub/myfile.xpm.gz
kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/
initrd-2.4.20-8.img

This would make for much more cleaner, better way looking of things.
The code button is the one which looks like # (comment) :)

Also what were the spaces all about. Try to reduce the space between them, its confusing, format it better.
 
Thanks... didn't know about code button :)

Spaces were to separate different portions of guide. In my experience, when text is all bunched up together, it is hard to read.

I edited this for easier reading... I hope this is better... could a moderator please delete the other post.
 
Artful,
Can you try out the new bleeding edge. GRUB 2

Code: 
aptitude show grub2
Package: grub2
State: not installed
Version: 1.95-2ubuntu1
Priority: extra
Section: universe/admin
Maintainer: Ubuntu MOTU Developers <ubuntu-motu@lists.ubuntu.com>
Uncompressed Size: 991k
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.5-0ubuntu1), liblzo1, libncurses5 (>= 5.4-5), debconf
Conflicts: pupa, grub
Replaces: pupa, grub
Provides: pupa
Description: The next generation of GNU GRUB [EXPERIMENTAL]
 GRUB2 (also known as PUPA) is the Preliminary Universal Programming
 Architecture for GRUB. It is a research project for the next generation of GNU
 GRUB. The most important goal is to make GNU GRUB cleaner, safer, more robust,
 more powerful, and more portable. 
 This package contains EXPERIMENTAL software which hasn't been properly tested
 and doesn't have all the expected features. For a stable and usable bootloader
 look at GRUB instead.

Although GRUB 1.95 has been working cool for me ;)
 
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