Add Background Image to GRUB2 in Ubuntu 10.04

Are you getting tired with the look of your GRUB window’s default setting? Well, your boring days is over. Sit back and relax because we’re about to give ‘life’ to your GRUB’s boring look. On this very easy tutorial, we are going to edit two configuration files and prepare one PNG image that we will use as your GRUB2 background.

Prepare And Add the Background Image

First prepare the image you are going to use as background for GRUB, preferably a PNG image (in my experience JPEG images, for some reason, did not work for this setup).

Then open your Terminal by going to Applications → Accessories and type:

$ sudo gedit /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme

Find the line:

WALLPAPER="/usr/share/images/desktop-base/moreblue-orbit-grub.png"

and change the value to the absolute path of your prepared image background.

You might also want to change the color scheme (also in the same file) that has a default value of

COLOR_NORMAL="black/black"

and

COLOR_HIGHLIGHT="magenta/black"

to your own preference. In my case I used “white/black” and “yellow/black,” unless my text would be black and I won’t be able to read it on a dark background image like the one I use above.

Save the file and exit gedit.

NOTE: If you want to use the same image I used for my GRUB, you can download it by clicking here.

Change Your GRUB Resolution

Now, since I used a bigger image (1280×1024), you might also want to change the resolution setting of GRUB for a better look. To do that, simply type in the Terminal:

$ sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

Find the line with,

#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

Uncomment the line by removing the # sign, and change the default value to

GRUB_GFXMODE=1280x1024

Save the file and exit gedit.

Apply All The Changes

Finally, do not forget to apply all the changes you’ve made by running this command in your Terminal.

$ sudo update-grub2

Reboot your computer and your will see your GRUB window now has new and better look. Sweet!

.