Grub Splash Image on my Eee PC

The default eeeXubuntu install doesn't setup a background image while the GRUB (the bootloader) is on screen. Quick google search and I found this post about enabling a splash image.

I installed grub-splashimages from the ubuntu repository and created the symlink to debian.xpm.gz. The next step was running update-grub, this added the necessary splashimage= line to /boot/grub/menu.lst but it got the drive numbering wrong and setup everything to boot from (hd2,0) instead of (hd0,0). I didn't notice this before rebooting so I had to edit the boot parameters in GRUB's shell to boot properly. I would recommend manually adding

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

to /boot/grub/menu.lst instead of running update-grub.

Once I fixed /boot/grub/menu.lst I rebooted and to my pleasure saw the debian splash image instead of black behind the GRUB menu.

None of the images that came as part of grub-splashimages were to my liking so I went on a hunt to find another image. After searching through many options on gnome-look.org and kde-look.org I decided to make my own. It's designed to fit with the default xubuntu GDM theme.



I'm certainly no artist and I'm sure someone else could do much better but it's sufficient for my needs.

Another quick search turned up a detailed Howto from Luis R. Rodriguez that contained contained the require steps for making your own image. After installing ImageMagick I converted the png I produced to the required format and gzipped it up.

 convert -resize 640x480 -colors 14 image.png image.xpm
gzip image.xpm

Here's the formatted and gzipped file for use as a GRUB splash image