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Hack 6. Display a GRUB Boot Splash Background

Add a graphical background to your GRUB bootloader.

By default, the GRUB bootloader looks rather bland. It's a menu in a box with some instructions below the menu. It is possible, however, to customize GRUB to display a graphical background. This hack blends nicely with other custom screen hacks such as [Hack #8] and [Hack #20], because each lets you customize the look of your screen at the different stages of booting up Linux, and starting up terminals or window managers.

It's hard to find many premade backgrounds for GRUB. You can view thumbnails of some available images at http://ruslug.rutgers.edu/~mcgrof/grub-images/images/, and download those images from http://ruslug.rutgers.edu/~mcgrof/grub-images/images/working-splashimages/. Place the image in the /boot/grub directory.

For example, let's assume you downloaded the file frag.xpm.gz. Log in as root, and copy that file to the /boot/grub directory:

# cp frag.xpm.gz /boot/grub

Now use your favorite editor to add or change the following line in your /boot/grub/grub.conf file:

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

The preceding line assumes that your /boot directory is located on the first partition on the first disk on your system. Change (hd0,0) to point to the disk and partition where your /boot directory resides, if it is different from the example.

Reboot and voilà: you now have a new background splash screen for GRUB. [Hack #7] provides full details on how to make your own personal backgrounds.

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