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Pimp My Boot Process (III)

Short version:

$ sudo aptitude install desktop-base splashy splashy-themes
$ sudo splashy_config --set-theme debian-moreblue
$ sudo vim /boot/grub/menu.lst

[...]
timeout 3
hiddenmenu
[...]
# defoptions=quiet splash
[...]

$ sudo update-grub

Long version:

A few weeks ago I tried to improve the visual appearance of my boot process using usplash and a matching grub splash theme.

It took me quite a while to create my first very own usplash theme and it was a rather complicated affair (Thanks to Petter Reinholdtsen for his patch which lead to my first working prototype). Since creating usplash themes is rather tricky and not really suitable for the average user I decided to switch to splashy. Splashy has many advantages above usplash like a very easy way to create themes, support of high resolution images and many themes already available in Debian.

So here is my current solution for a nice bootup:

First I installed desktop-base in order to get the nice moreblue KDM theme:

$ sudo aptitude install desktop-base

Then I installed splashy and splashy-themes in order to get a theme matching KDM’s moreblue theme:

$ sudo aptitude install splashy splashy-themes
$ sudo splashy_config --set-theme debian-moreblue

Since grub has only rudimentary support for theming, I decided to remove the boot menu completely. Most of the time I’ll boot the first kernel in the list anyway and you still have $timeout seconds to press Escape in order to bring the menu back.

$ sudo vim /boot/grub/menu.lst

[...]
timeout 3
hiddenmenu
[...]
# defoptions=quiet splash
[...]

$ sudo update-grub

The result looks quite cool and gives my boot process a polished an clean look. It’s still not perfect since splashy’s theme does not match exactly KDM’s theme and KDM flicks in an other wallpaper before it starts and after the login, but it’s good enough for now.