One of the main bootloaders used in Linux today is GRand Unified Bootloader, or more commonly known GRUB. During the boot process of your computer, GRUB will give you a choice of operating systems to boot into, along with kernels if you have multiple kernels installed. Adding a splash screen to GRUB will give your computer your own flair during the boot up process. In order to use the splash screen, you will need to keep an image to 640 X 480 pixels with a maximum of 16 colors.
Step 1
Open the GNU Image Manipulation Program, GIMP. Inside GIMP you will be able to modify the image to what GRUB needs to display a splash screen. Click “File” and “Open” and choose an image file to use for your splash image.
Step 2
Scale the image to the appropriate size by clicking “Image” and “Scale Image” from the menu. Change the image width to 640 pixels, GIMP will automatically adjust the height to 480 pixels if you keep the link connected between height and width. Click “Scale” at the bottom of the window to make the changes.
Step 3
Change the color index by clicking “Image,” “Mode” and “Indexed.” In the new window that opens up, change the number of colors to 16. Click “Index” to change the colors in the image.
Step 4
Save the newly adjusted image by clicking “File” and “Save As.” Type in “splash.xpm” as the file name and save the file in your “Home” folder. Right-click on “splash.xpm” in your home folder and select “Compress” from the pull down menu. In the new window save the file as “splash.xpm.gz to make the file compatible with GRUB.
Step 5
Open a terminal and type “sudo mv splash.xpm.gz /boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz” then press “Enter.” This will move the file to the location that GRUB uses when booting up the computer. If the file is not placed in this location along with this name then GRUB will fail to initialize it as a boot splash screen.
Step 6
Type “sudo nano /boot/grub/grub.conf” into your terminal window. This will open a new window using Nano text editor. Insert a line that says “splashimage=splash.xpm.gz” then press “Ctrl-X” on your keyboard. Press “Y” when prompted to save the file. When you reboot the computer, GRUB will display the splash screen you created.
Step 7
To create other splash images, change the name of the original splash image to “splash.xpm.gz.1” and create a new file using GIMP and following the remainder of the process. You will not need to edit grub.conf again, when you make the new file and transfer it to the appropriate directory then you will have all the changes you need in place.
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