Pretty Grubs

The up-and-coming bootloader on the Linux scene is, without doubt, Grub, the GRand Unified Bootloader. It’s configurable, flexible and offers more recovery options than my old favorite, Lilo. You can also make it look pretty. Pretty grubs? Here’s how.

First, you’ll need that perfect splash image. It should be a 14-color 640×480 .xpm image. If you don’t have any cool .xpm images sitting around on your hard drive, the Gimp will handle the resize and conversion perfectly from nearly any other format.

Once you’ve created and/or found the perfect Grub splash image, save it in the /boot/grub directory, with a name you’ll remember. You can, as well, save and use the image in .gz format. Next, open your /boot/grub/grub.conf file with your favorite text editor, looking for the following entry:

    splashimage = (hd0,2)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz

It’s a simple matter to change the “splash.xpm.gz” image to the image of your choice and creation. Make the change, save the file, and you’re on your way. The next time Grub boots your system, your image will grace the process.

And you though “pretty grubs” was a phrase reserved for fishermen.