Personalising the Grub Menu

[Ceilidh2]

Now that I've got both Mate and Cinnamon installed, I'd like to improve the look of the grub menu, if that's possible.

I've installed Grub Customizer, and succeded in removing the two references to Memory Tester, but none of the other settings I've tried seem to make any difference. Especially, my background picture does not display, and when I tried a new font (Dejavu Sans) it took up the whole screen, with a space between every letter! sudo update-grub fixed that, but now I'm back to square one.

Any ideas?

[kyphi]

In grub-customizer, Appearance settings, I have "custom resolution" ticked and set to 800x600 and "Theme" set to Custom Settings. Font "Normal".
The background image is a jpg file.
Save before exit if making changes.

[Pjotr]

You don't need grub-customizer to set a .jpg background for your Grub menu:
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... autifygrub

It's better to do it like that, because then you know exactly what you're doing and there's less risk of damaging Grub.

[Ceilidh2]

Thanks guys, but no luck.

Pjotr, here is the content of my /grub file:

#GRUB_COLOR_HIGHLIGHT="black/black"
#GRUB_TIMEOUT="0"
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR="`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`"
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET="true"
GRUB_DEFAULT="0"
GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT="false"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""
#GRUB_BACKGROUND="/home/graeme/Pictures/Pictures/Jane 13.jpg"

export GRUB_MENU_PICTURE="/home/graeme/Jane.png"
GRUB_GFXMODE="saved"
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT="0"
GRUB_FONT="/boot/grub/unicode.pf2"

Nothing there about resolution.

[phd21]

Now that I've got both Mate and Cinnamon installed, I'd like to improve the look of the grub menu, if that's possible.

I've installed Grub Customizer, and succeded in removing the two references to Memory Tester, but none of the other settings I've tried seem to make any difference. Especially, my background picture does not display, and when I tried a new font (Dejavu Sans) it took up the whole screen, with a space between every letter! sudo update-grub fixed that, but now I'm back to square one.

Any ideas?

Hi Ceilidh2,

I don't know that it matters, but I use ".png" graphic files for my background images and they always work. I set my resolution to 1024x768 because my system can handle that. If you are not using ".png" files, you could easily convert (or export) your background image from whatever format it is in to ".png" using Linux Gimp photo editor or some other photo editor. I have never tried to change the fonts. But, I have tried to change the default colors through "Grub Customizer" or "Grub2 bootloader" and for some reason on my system it never takes. I have to manually bring up my filemanager and browse the "root" folder to the "boot" folder, then to the "grub" folder, then right click the "grub.cfg" file, select "root actions", open as text, and edit the file to change the foreground and background colors (around line 120) to what I want, or need, then save the file, exit all filemanager windows and reboot to see if it worked. I also copy my background Images to the "themes" folder under the "grub" folder with "root" access before selecting it using Grub Customizer, or Grub2 bootloader. My background image has a white background and the default Linux colors make my boot menu practically invisible unless I change the colors to something that would show well on a white background. You could change the font settings in this file as well. I don't know why the font you chose didn't work properly, but try another, see the article links below...

*** You must be extremely careful when editing the "grub.cfg" file manually, otherwise you could screw up your computer booting up process ! ***

Of course, if you are prepared and already have the "boot-repair-disk" cd already created then you can always easily recover or repair your Grub file(s) and boot processes. "Super Grub2 Boot Loader" also works if you mess something up.

Interesting articles on customizing your boot up Grub file:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2/Displays

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Maint ... rub2Screen

Hope this helps ...

[Cosmo.]

GRUB_GFXMODE="saved"

Nothing there about resolution.

GRUB_GFX_MODE is about resolution, but the value "saved" is wrong. By default the value is 640x480 and the setting is commented out. You have to find out, which resolution get supported and write it in this line. (Wondering, how this "saved" made it into this line).

For finding out, which resolution are supported, press - as long as the boot menu gets shown - the key C; this brings you to the Grub commandline. Enter

Code: Select all

vbeinfo

and you see the supported resolutions.

[Pjotr]

Thanks guys, but no luck.

Pjotr, here is the content of my /grub file:

#GRUB_COLOR_HIGHLIGHT="black/black"
#GRUB_TIMEOUT="0"
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR="`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`"
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET="true"
GRUB_DEFAULT="0"
GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT="false"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""
#GRUB_BACKGROUND="/home/graeme/Pictures/Pictures/Jane 13.jpg"

export GRUB_MENU_PICTURE="/home/graeme/Jane.png"
GRUB_GFXMODE="saved"
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT="0"
GRUB_FONT="/boot/grub/unicode.pf2"

Nothing there about resolution.

You need a default, completely vanilla /etc/default/grub file for my how-to to work:

Code: Select all

# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
# For full documentation of the options in this file, see:
#   info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

# Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs
# This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains
# the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...)
#GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef"

# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only)
#GRUB_TERMINAL=console

# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true

# Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries
#GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true"

# Uncomment to get a beep at grub start
#GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"

Then it's really as simple as pumping a .jpg picture into the right system folder and running update-grub afterwards.

[phd21]

Now that I've got both Mate and Cinnamon installed, I'd like to improve the look of the grub menu, if that's possible.

I've installed Grub Customizer, and succeded in removing the two references to Memory Tester, but none of the other settings I've tried seem to make any difference. Especially, my background picture does not display, and when I tried a new font (Dejavu Sans) it took up the whole screen, with a space between every letter! sudo update-grub fixed that, but now I'm back to square one.

Any ideas?

Hi Ceilidh2, or Anyone else,

I was experimenting with Grub boot up customization again. I doubt most users mess around with their boot up process (grub2), but Like you, I think it is nice to be able to customize it the way you would like it, especially because the normal boot up is soooo boring after awhile.

User Cosmo has a very good suggestion to check to see what video resolution your system can handle before customizing the Grub boot up. When my system came up to the Grub Boot Menu, I hit "C", entered in "vbeinfo", and it showed me all the various video resolutions this computer setup can handle and it recommended "1440x900". So, I changed mine to that. Obviously, you would use whatever resolution setting your system shows you from this command.

Regarding allowable boot-up splash image graphic types, I forgot that I also use ".jpg" image type in addition to using ".png" image type. "GRUB 2 can use PNG, JPG/JPEG and TGA images for the background". The links to articles on customizing Grub boot up in my previous post explains all of this in great detail. The reason I move my boot up splash screen images to the "/grub/themes" folder is that I don't want boot up errors If I move an image in my normal "/My Pictures" folder to another folder and it happens to be my boot up image (which happened to me).

I still cannot get the boot menu text colors to work the way I'd like it through "Grub Customizer" or "Grub2 bootloader" without going throught the process I explained before, or using the commands from the command line explained in those articles. I don't know why, maybe it has something to do with permissions. In fact, if I change anything in the Grub using "Grub Customizer" or "Grub2 bootloader", and save it, the linux default Grub menu text colors come right back and then I have to change them to what I want, again. If anyone knows why this is, and how to solve it, I'd like to know, please.

As for the fonts, if you read the articles from the links I posted, there is a method to do that, but it seemed unnecessary for me on quick review. So, I have not tried that yet. Have you? If so, what happened?

In order to make a Grub2 font (.pf2) from whatever font you want to use that you have on your system see the information in the quote below. You might have to alter the commands below, like font name and path name, to wherever your font that you want to use is located. I read that you might have to use only "mono spaced" fonts. If you don't have the Microsoft true type fonts installed in your system, you can add those from your Synaptic Package Manager (SPM)...

If you want to see what fonts you have in your linux system using your filemanager, bring up your filemanager and go to "/usr/share/fonts/truetype". If you want your filemanager to show you what they look like, preview fonts, then go to "settings" in your filemanager, then configure filemanager (in my case "dolphin" is my filemanager), then scroll down to "General" settings on the left, then click "Previews" on the right, make sure "Font Files" is checked hit "apply" , then "ok"... Note: If you want filemanger to be able to display "thumbnails" images of other file types, ex: .pdf, then click all file types that you want to preview in your filemanager before hitting apply and ok.

In my Linux Mint 17.1 KDE, I have 2 folders (directories) where "grub" boot-up files are located. I'm not sure yet if custom new grub fonts need to be in both folders or not.
/boot/grub ---- This is the primary or main location of the Grub files and it has a "fonts" folder "/boot/grub/fonts"
/usr/share/grub ---- This also has the default font for some reason?

*** 03-31-2015 04:45pm eastern *** I tried creating and using a font "Arial_Bold.ttf" (not a mono spaced font) using the "grub-mkfont" command below, which indeed did create the new font "Arial_Bold.pf2" in my "/boot/grub/fonts" folder. So, I went into my "grub.cfg" and added the line "GRUB_FONT=/boot/grub/Arial_Bold.pf2" which did not work for me; system still used the default Unicode font. So, I commented out that line using a "#" in the front of the line. Then, I searched my "grub.cfg" file for all references to "font" and around line 64 replaced font reference from "font=unicode" to "font=Arial_Bold" and again around line 73-74 where it shows "font="/usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2" "to "font="/usr/share/grub/Arial_Bold.pf2" ". Then I restarted my computer and it crashed, could not boot-up, just a grub prompt. I think this happened because I did not use a monspaced font, or maybe because new font name wasn't all lower case letters, which of course I will check shortly and let you know. Thankfully, because of the "boot-repair-disk", I was able to recover quickly, although it made me go through more steps than it usually does.

sudo grub-mkfont --output=/boot/grub/fonts/DejaVuSansMono.pf2 \ --size=24 /usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSansMono.ttf
or
sudo grub-mkfont --output=/boot/grub/fonts/Arial_Bold30.pf2 --size=30 /usr/share/fonts/truetype/msttcorefonts/Arial_Bold.ttf

If you are not satisfied with the size of the font, see this link for some information about the command above.
http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p= ... tcount=285

Somewhere near the top of the "grub.cfg" file on or about the 13th or so line enter
GRUB_FONT=/boot/grub/fonts/DejaVuSansMono.pf2

Just in case something goes wrong ....

If you don't already have the CD's/DVD's, or usb drives, of the boot repair and Grub utility programs I am going to mention, then I would highly recommend that you download and create these right away and keep them in a safe and handy location. You may have to choose 32 bit or 64 bit depending on your CPU hardware.

If you are having a problem booting up into an operating system (os) partition, like Windows or Linux Mint, then download and create a CD of the wonderful
Super Grub2 Boot Loader - shows all installed operating systems and lets you boot into them, also helps for booting into USB drives on older systems.
Supergrubdisk Info
http://www.supergrubdisk.org/

If you need to repair a boot drive MBR or Grub, then download and create a CD of the awesome program
"boot-repair-disk", A rescue disk that includes the Boot Repair Tool
Info:
http://sourceforge.net/p/boot-repair-cd/home/Home/
Download Files:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/boot-repair-cd/files/

If you cannot boot up into your Linux Operating Systems for whatever reasons, don't panic. Just boot up to your "boot-repair-disk" via the CD or USB drive, then select the one button repair "recommended repair", let it do its thing, then exit and reboot, and you should be good to go.

[kyphi]

Although many valid points are being made here this is getting needlessly complicated.

The question posed by Ceilidh2 was how to change resolution and background image in GRUB using grub-customizer.

To set the screen resolution, open the "Appearance settings" tab, tick "custom resolution", highlight "saved" and type in your desired resolution in this example format, 800x600.

To set the background image, still in the "Appearance settings" tab, set the "Theme" to "(Custom Settings)". Then go to the bottom of the screen to "background image", click on the camera icon and locate the image you want to have displayed.
Ensure that the name of the image file does not contain any spaces. If it does, use "rename" to either remove the space or use an underscore in lieu of the space. Check that the name, if altered, is displayed correctly in grub-customizer.

Save before exit.

Grub-customizer automatically effects an update-grub.

[Ceilidh2]

Wow.

Thanks guys. That is going to take a bit of digesting. I will report back.

[phd21]

Wow.

Thanks guys. That is going to take a bit of digesting. I will report back.

HI Ceilidh2,

As user kyphi mentioned, changing your boot-up (Grub2) background (splash screen) and boot screen resolution using "Grub Customizer", or using other methods, should be relatively easy. I still recommend that you convert (export) your background image(s) to ".png" or ".tga" not ".jpg". For some reason some people are having issues when using ".jpg" image files for this, perhaps because of the ".jpg" requirements which the other image formats don't have.

Changing the Grub2 boot font isn't that difficult either, thanks to user MagicMint and others. I tried the fairly easy methods in the link below and they worked. I have always been able to use "Grub Customizer", or "Grub2 bootloader" to easily change the background and boot screen resolution; and after reinstalling my Grub2 files, changing the fonts sort of worked using "Grub Customizer". Depending on the font and font size that I choose, I got good to weird results. The fonts work, but the "box" that is drawn around the boot menu would sometimes work normally with lines or show weird characters instead of lines. I have my screen resolution set at "1440x900" and any font size of 21 or higher was too large for my screen.

A quick recap of the web link below: There is a "grub" text file just called "grub" in the root folder "/etc/default" which you can edit as "root" from your file manager or the terminal command prompt to easily add your background image, set your screen resolution, and set the font that you want to use, then save the file. Then, from a terminal command prompt, just type in "sudo update-grub" to install the changes and that process will automatically update the "grub.cfg" file in the "/boot/grub" folder, then just restart your computer. If your "grub" file doesn't have these lines already in it, just add them, making any changes that you need to. If you are not using Grub Customizer, remember that the font must be converted to ".pf2" and put into the "/boot/grub" folder for grub to work with it.

Good easy article by MagicMint - HOWTO Embellish the Boot Screen (grub2)
http://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/1357

My "grub" file, shown below, located in the folder "/etc/default"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
GRUB_COLOR_HIGHLIGHT="red/black"
GRUB_COLOR_NORMAL="blue/black"
GRUB_TIMEOUT="21"
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR="`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`"
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET="true"
GRUB_DEFAULT="saved"
GRUB_GFXMODE="1440x900"
GRUB_FONT=/boot/grub/comicbd21.pf2
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""
GRUB_BACKGROUND="/boot/grub/picture.png" -- could be any folder with the pic
export GRUB_MENU_PICTURE="/boot/grub/picture.png"
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: the last two lines can be changed to use a "themes" folder underneath the system grub folder, ie: "/boot/grub/themes"
GRUB_BACKGROUND="/boot/grub/themes/picture.png" -- could be any folder with the pic
export GRUB_MENU_PICTURE="/boot/grub/themes/picture.png"

[Ceilidh2]

Image.png

Well, here is what grub-customiser says my boot screen should look like. I wish.

In fact there are no colours; the script is just grey and the picture is grey and white with some splashes of brown and blue. Very depressing.

But I have been able to change the font! Not thru grub-customiser, but by following the instructions in the tutorials that phd21 reccommended. And I do actually have a background, which is a step in the right direction. Now, about that lack of colour....... I could believe it was a fault in my picture resolution, were it not for the fact that the script is monochrome also, and the highlighted line should be red, and the normal lines blue.

Here is /etc/default/grub;

GRUB_COLOR_HIGHLIGHT="red/black"
GRUB_COLOR_NORMAL="blue/black"
GRUB_TIMEOUT="10"
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR="`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`"
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET="true"
GRUB_DEFAULT="0"
GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT="false"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""
GRUB_BACKGROUND="/boot/grub/linuxmint.png"
export GRUB_MENU_PICTURE="/boot/grub/linuxmint.png"
GRUB_GFXMODE="1366x768"
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT="0"



GRUB_FONT="/boot/grub/unicode.pf2"

GFXMODE 1366x768 is the only option that appears in my boot menu, and my picture has been resized to exactly that in GIMP.

[Ceilidh2]

Nope. I take that back.

I have not been able to change the font, it has reverted back to unicode.pf2, and my unifont.pf2 file has vanished from /boot/grub/fonts!

This is getting frustrating.

[WinterTroubles]

There seems to be a short coming in grub customiser whereby you are unable to set font colours. I had the same issue myself some months ago. I eventually found the solution on Ubuntu Forums and posted the cause, solution and a link to the post I was referencing. The link to my post on these forums is:- http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... 26#p964626

I'm afraid I have no idea about the lack of colour in your image though, sorry.

Regards
WT

edit.. I used this image /usr/share/backgrounds/linuxmint-retro/Felicia.png without making any changes to it and it displays perfectly. As it's one of the default wallpapers in 17.1 I thought it may be of interest for comparisons sake.

[Ceilidh2]

YES!!!!!!

Thank you WT. I now have coloured text. And I suppose that so long as I never actually run Grub Customiser, the settings will stay. It was useful for editing the text lines, but near as I can tell, hasn't achieved anything else.

[phd21]

Image.png

Well, here is what grub-customiser says my boot screen should look like. I wish.

In fact there are no colours; the script is just grey and the picture is grey and white with some splashes of brown and blue. Very depressing.

But I have been able to change the font! Not thru grub-customiser, but by following the instructions in the tutorials that phd21 reccommended. And I do actually have a background, which is a step in the right direction. Now, about that lack of colour....... I could believe it was a fault in my picture resolution, were it not for the fact that the script is monochrome also, and the highlighted line should be red, and the normal lines blue.

Here is /etc/default/grub;

GRUB_COLOR_HIGHLIGHT="red/black"
GRUB_COLOR_NORMAL="blue/black"
GRUB_TIMEOUT="10"
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR="`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`"
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET="true"
GRUB_DEFAULT="0"
GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT="false"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""
GRUB_BACKGROUND="/boot/grub/linuxmint.png"
export GRUB_MENU_PICTURE="/boot/grub/linuxmint.png"
GRUB_GFXMODE="1366x768"
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT="0"



GRUB_FONT="/boot/grub/unicode.pf2"

GFXMODE 1366x768 is the only option that appears in my boot menu, and my picture has been resized to exactly that in GIMP.

Hi Ceilidh2,

You are almost there. As I mentioned in previous posts, I have never been able to get the Grub2 Boot Menu Text (highlight and normal) to show the colors I wanted without having to go to the root "/boot/grub" folder and right click "root action" and open the "grub.cfg" file as text and edit (line 116-117), or create (lines 122-123), the lines below, then save the text file. It always works when I do this, but every time I modify the Grub boot in any way, I have to go back in and put the colors back into this "/boot/grub/grub.cfg" file, and save the changes, see below.

"grub.cfg" - lines 116 & 122
=================================================================
if background_image /boot/grub/custompicture.png; then
true
else
set menu_color_normal=blue/black
set menu_color_highlight=red/black
if background_color 0,0,0; then
clear
fi
fi
set menu_color_normal=blue/black
set menu_color_highlight=red/black

### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###
==================================================================

[WinterTroubles]

YES!!!!!!

Thank you WT. I now have coloured text. And I suppose that so long as I never actually run Grub Customiser, the settings will stay. It was useful for editing the text lines, but near as I can tell, hasn't achieved anything else.

You're welcome.

Running grub customiser shouldn't alter the settings for text colour that you have applied. As I understand it the changes grub customiser makes when changing text colour are ignored as the settings in the file you edited take a higher priority.

As for you other issues, I've not experienced them so have no solution, sorry.

Regards
WT

[Ceilidh2]

Yeah. I've commented out both those lines in /etc/default/grub and I still have coloured text.

Thanks very much for your help.