Changing GRUB theme

[Juhele]

Hi,
I have bad eyes and the default Kubuntu GRUB theme text is too small for me - very uncomfortable especially for dual-boot machines. Is it possible to easily change it? I also have OpenSuSe 12.2 on other computer and the GRUB theme is much better - nice green colors and easily readable text. I would like to change at least the used font and size and if possible, changing color scheme would be also nice (or simply use other theme if there is something available).

I have no problem to change the LightDM or Plymouth theme, but not the GRUB one.

thanks

[Rog131]

Grub2

Ubuntu Community Grub howto: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2

There is a Grub2 config module for the KDE - home: http://sourceforge.net/projects/kcm-grub2/

Package name is kde-config-grub2: http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?ke...ll&section=all


Manual way

This is only a way - there are other ways to do this.

Start point:



Changing the background image and the font color

1) Making a directory:

sudo mkdir -p /usr/share/desktop-base/

2) Adding there a file to set the background and the font colors:

kdesudo kate /usr/share/desktop-base/grub_background.sh

The file:

WALLPAPER="/lib/plymouth/themes/kubuntu-logo/background.png"
COLOR_NORMAL="white/black"
COLOR_HIGHLIGHT="green/black"

Using the plymouth background as the Grunb background.

COLOR_NORMAL
The first color is the text color (white); the second is the background color (black=transparent).

COLOR_HIGHLIGHT
The first color is the highlighted text color; the second is the background color of the selected line. If black is the second entry, the highlighted line will be transparent and only the text will change color.

3) Updating the grub:

sudo update-grub

4) Rebooting

The result:




The font and the font size

man grub-mkfont

NAME
       grub-mkfont - make GRUB font files

SYNOPSIS
       grub-mkfont [OPTIONS] FONT_FILES

OPTIONS
       -o, --output=FILE_NAME
              set output file name
...
       -s, --size=N
              set font size
...

1) Making a font directory:

sudo mkdir -p /boot/grub/my-font/

2) Adding there a new font:

sudo grub-mkfont -s 18 -o /boot/grub/my-font/grub2font.pf2 /usr/share/fonts/truetype/ttf-dejavu/DejaVuSansMono.ttf

3) Adding the new font to the grub config:

kdesudo kate /etc/default/grub

Adding there a line - path to the font

GRUB_FONT=/boot/grub/my-font/grub2font.pf2

4) Updating the grub:

sudo update-grub

5) Rebooting

The result:



More links

- http://askubuntu.com/questions/11846...ault-grub-font

[Arran]

@ Juhele: Install the «kde-config-grub2» through Muon or over the console You then can do all personalisation as you like in a graphic interface. You will find it after installation in the Systems setup, System configuration (the booom chapter) and there double click on Start and Close down. (Sorry, I have a German Kubuntu, so in English the terms might be slightly different.)
Good luck.

@ Rog131: People who have difficulty to read do NOT need background pictures and preferably dark letters on light colours. As to your tutorial for setup, I would ask, why so complicated, when the installation of the package is so easy, certainly when you already mentioned it.

[Rog131]

@ Rog131: People who have difficulty to read do NOT need background pictures and preferably dark letters on light colours. As to your tutorial for setup, I would ask, why so complicated, when the installation of the package is so easy, certainly when you already mentioned it.

It is an example - it is not the example. The background can be one color picture (suse green ? "nice green colors and easily readable text. ").




The gui could work or not - I tried the kde-config-grub2 with the Quantal/VirtualBox and the result was:



I try to give advices that are/were working at here - they may or may not work there or you may not like them.

Juhele:

...I would like to change at least the used font and size and if possible...

By my knowlodge the kde-config-grub2 has the color and the background settings - no font settings. You need to convert the wanted font with the correct size and tell the Grub that you to want to use that font.




The kde-config-grub2 is one example of the Grub setting gui. There are/has been other examples for the KDE/Gnome Grub config gui's.

[Arran]

In your first example you are comparing an aircraft carrier with a Cessna. (Susi representing the carrier.)

The font would be changed in the general font settings, as the console can only use a limited number of fonts.

Else, you may be right or not, but in my opinion such extensive workings for a little – however important – effect support the old prejudice of Windows or Apple users that Linux is a console OS. So, if there is a gui way, I prefer advising this.

[Juhele]

Hi,
thanks very much for such a detailed feedback guys. I tried kde-config-grub2 but as mentioned above, it is not able to change the fonts. So I am going to study a little bit all the advices you gave me and will make it the manual way. I could probably create a new them and later release via Opendesktop.org so that also other people with similar problem could enjoy it. :-)

Rog131: I have a small OT question - which tool do you use to create those nice screenshots with shadows etc.? thanks

[Juhele]

The font would be changed in the general font settings, as the console can only use a limited number of fonts.

Hm,
in such case, the font should be much bigger according to my settings. I have the same set in system font settings.

[Juhele]

Hi,
I tried to play a little bit with custom fonts etc. but finally there was much easier solution - following some article I found a notice about Aero GRUB Theme, which looked very nice:



I installed it simply using the attached script and after reboot I had a nice theme and also big and bold text there. The theme is slightly distorted on my wide screen, but this is a minor issue for me.

[Xplorer4x4]

I personally use BURG. In my case I sue the Kubuntu-EOS theme so I just see icons. This might be soemthing you are interested in.

Preview:
http://kde-look.org/CONTENT/content-pre1/134584-1.png

[Keith Sayers]

My thanks to everyone who responded, I decided to try first for this kde-config-grub2 program although I noticed the caution that it has no font settings. I downloaded it, unzipped it and tried to follow the instructions :

Enter the directory where you extracted the source code and run:

$ mkdir build
$ cd build
$ cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=`kde4-config --prefix`
$ make
$ sudo make install

You may then find the GRUB2 KCModule under "Startup and Shutdown" in System Settings.

.................

But at that third line I have tripped over the = sign :

keith@Tsunami:~/GrubConfiguring/build$ cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX='kde-config --prefix'
CMake Error:
The path to the source directory:

/home/keith/GrubConfiguring/build/.. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=kde-config --prefix

contains unsupported character '='.

Please use a different source directory name.

...................

So I tried some variations but all stalled :

keith@Tsunami:~/GrubConfiguring/build$ cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX = 'kde-config --prefix'
CMake Error: The source directory "/home/keith/GrubConfiguring/build/kde-config --prefix" does not exist.

I am obviously missing something - could anyone point it out for me?

(Thank you again)

[vinnywright]

why are you trying to compile it when you can just install it with muon ,,,,,or apt-get.

sudo apt-get install kde-config-grub2

should do it nicely

VINNY

[Keith Sayers]

Ignorance, I regret to say. :-(= (But I am learning, albeit slowly.) Your method did work (thank you) and the package ran but indeed apparently does not include a font option. I will look for the Aero GRUB Theme and the BURG that have been mentioned, but I think I have already tried the 'general font settings' if those are what appear in System Settings.

[Keith Sayers]

> I personally use BURG. In my case I sue the Kubuntu-EOS theme so I just see icons. This might be soemthing you are interested in.

> Preview: http://kde-look.org/CONTENT/content-pre1/134584-1.png

Found that png and am interested but how do I get back from that to the BURG you mention? (Tried searching just on BURG and got sent all over the place.)

[Keith Sayers]

I finally managed it! For the benefit of anyone following on behind, this is what I did :

sudo mkdir -p /boot/grub/myfont/
sudo grub-mkfont -s 18 -o /boot/grub/my-font/grub2font.pf2
sudo kate /etc/default/grub

System jibbed at that last line, so :

cp grub grubold (to give me a backup)
cp /etc/default/grub /tmp

Then moved to Kate and via that manually added two lines to that /tmp/grub file :

# Endeavouring to increase the font size
GRUB_FONT=/boot/grub/my-font/grub2font.pf2

Back into Konsole and :
cp /tmp/grub /etc/default/grub
sudo update-grub

Then restarted the system and that opening screen was wonderfully improved.

I deduce therefore that I now have in that grub2font.pf2 file an entry saying font=18 and that that is being picked up by grub when it loads? So that if I wished to make further changes I could do so by editing that file? But it opens only partially via Kate and an online search for the .pf2 suffix yielded information on only Picture Style Editor and SmartWare - both Windows so I assume not useful to me. Is there any software that I could use to edit grub2font.pf2, please?

[Snowhog]

kate is a graphical application, and you should avoid launching graphical apps with sudo. In this instance, if you had instead run kdesudo kate /etc/default/grub all would have been fine.

No matter, you resolved your issue, so congrats!