Friday, June 29, 2007

change boot splash screen ubuntu

Easy steps to change the boot splash screen in ubuntu 7.04

1. firstly get the available splash screens. Do a

sudo apt-get install usplash*

It will display a list of available splash screens with ubuntu.

2. Next check out the available splash screens in /usr/lib/usplash

ls -lh /usr/lib/usplash

total 12M
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 43K 2006-11-23 17:42 debian-edu-usplash.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.3M 2007-03-30 17:33 edubuntu-splash.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 36 2007-05-17 23:20 usplash-artwork.so -> /etc/alternatives/usplash-artwork.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.0M 2006-10-17 15:13 usplash-theme-ichthux.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.3M 2007-04-07 15:36 usplash-theme-kubuntu.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.6M 2007-04-10 18:28 usplash-theme-ubuntu.so
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 2.0M 2007-03-19 16:17 usplash-theme-xubuntu.so


Here you can see that you have 6 splash screens and one soft link. Check out the softlink.

ls -lh /etc/alternatives/usplash-artwork.so

lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 41 2007-06-29 08:38 /etc/alternatives/usplash-artwork.so -> /usr/lib/usplash/usplash-theme-xubuntu.so

It points back to one of the screens from the /usr/lib/usplash directory. So to change the screen simply change the soft link

sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/usplash-theme-kubuntu.so /etc/alternatives/usplash-artwork.so

And now check the new link

3. reconfigure the linux image

sudo dpkg-reconfigure linux-image-

Running depmod.
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.20-16-generic
.
.
Updating /boot/grub/menu.lst ... done


Thats done...

To check the new screen, no dont reboot simply type in

sudo usplash

And you can see the new screen - bingo. To get back to your xwindows environment press CTRL-ALT-F7

P.S.

here is the link for advanced users for creating their own splash screens
http://codeidol.com/unix/ubuntu/X11/Change-the-Ubuntu-Splash-Screen/
Anyone who develops his/her own splash screen can share it out with other ubuntians...

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice step by step guide! Thanks!
one improvement you could make is to change the "sudo dpkg-reconfigure linux-image-" line to
"sudo dpkg-reconfigure linux-image-`uname -r`

Anonymous said...

install bootsplash
a quick and easy
tutorial

Dipin Krishna said...

Hello,

You can find more tips on this and on linux at Linux Tips

Anonymous said...

you can find more ways
http://www.jaininaveen.com/?page_id=113
http://www.ubuntugeek.com/how-to-change-settings-for-the-bootloader-and-splash-screen-in-ubuntu.html
http://digg.com/linux_unix/Down_with_Brown_-_Changing_Login_Splash_Screen_on_Ubuntu_Dapper_Drake

Anonymous said...

Typo:
sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/usplash-theme-kubuntu.so /etc/alternatives/usplash-artwork.so

Should be:
sudo ln -sf /usr/lib/usplash/usplash-theme-kubuntu.so /etc/alternatives/usplash-artwork.so

Anonymous said...

to chane my spash screen (after installing the usplash ) I use

sudo update-alternatives --config usplash-artwork.so

Anonymous said...

thanks........ i will try my project again to remaster ubuntu. did you have tutorial about it?