Bootsplash on Gentoo Linux

November 17, 2008 · Posted in Gentoo · 9 Comments

There are many guides about this one but most of them are way too complicated to deal with.

I am gonna show you in simple steps how to add a bootsplash on your gentoo machine

1) Required Packages

First emerge

media-gfx/splashutils

media-gfx/splash-themes-gentoo

media-gfx/splash-themes-livecd

The first package installs severals usefull scripts to deal with splash themes, while the second and third one provide us some extra themes

2) Create image

Enter on splash themes directory

cd /etc/splash/

Choose the theme you want ( use ls command to see all the themes ) and then create initrd file with

splash_geninitramfs  -g <place> -r <resolution> -v <theme>

Where:

place: Type the place to put your initrd file ( usually /boot/<theme_name>

resolution: Prefered resolution ( The supported resolutions for each theme can be found under /etc/splash/<theme>/)

theme: Themes’ name

eg. Lets say i want to create an 1280×800 bootplash for natural_gentoo theme I should type

splash_geninitramfs -g /boot/natural_gentoo -r 1280x800 -v natural_gentoo

And this is the output

 o Creating directory structure..

o Copying //sbin/fbcondecor_helper..

o Copying themes..

  - natural_gentoo

o Creating initramfs image..

3) Configure Grub

This is my grub.conf ( or menu.list file )

kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27-gentoo-r2-evil-inside

root=/dev/sda5 resume=/dev/sda2 init=/sbin/bootchartd

quiet video=intelfb:1280x800-32@60 vga=792 splash=silent,fadein,theme:natural_gentoo

console=tty1 initrd /boot/natural_gentoo

I assume you understand the first two lines so im gonna explain what is going on from the third line

quiet: Means to hide bootinformation while we are on bootsplash screen

video:Set your framebuffer driver (choose yours from /usr/src/linux/Documentation/fb/ ). Also set your resolution, color depth and the Hz of your monitor

vga: Set the color depth of your monitor . A google search will help you to understand this number

splash: Several splash screen options. Silence stands for quiet ( you can ommit it if you have set quiet before). Fadein is just an effect :). Theme is the name of your choosen theme ( you can omit it if you have set an initrd file )

console: Type the console in which you want to apply the bootsplash. Usually you set the first tty console

Initrd: Put the path for the previously created initrd image file

4) Reboot

All done. Reboot your machine and you will face a beautyfull Dark Gentoo Bootsplash :)

If something went wrong please leave a comment so we can solve it :)

Thanks

Tags: <bootsplash, Gentoo, splash>