HOWTO: Spice up your boot text [font resolution and color]

[dudinatrix]

I'm a sucker for tiny, sharp and colorful. [K]ubuntu's boot is big and bland out of the box. This thread will help you make it look better! This will not give you a splash image or hide the boot text, it will only make it look better.

Difficulty: Quick, easy and painless. 2 edits, no installs.

UPDATE: Screenshot example added below. Click here for a detailed post and sample files to produce output.

STEP 1: Increase resolution (optional)
- Edit /boot/grub/menu.lst
- Add vga=792 to your default boot option.

Example:

title		Ubuntu, kernel 2.6.10-5-k7 Default 
root		(hd0,0)
kernel		/vmlinuz root=/dev/hde6 ro quiet splash vga=792
initrd		/initrd.img
savedefault
boot

STEP 2: Colorize "[ ok ]" ... these instructions will make it green
- Edit /lib/lsb/init-functions
- Find the log_end_msg () function, all the way at the bottom of the file
- Add GREEN=`$TPUT setaf 2` below RED=`$TPUT setaf 1`
- Change

echo "$UP$END[ ok ]"

to

echo "$UP$END[ ${GREEN}ok${NORMAL} ]"

Here's the full function, changes bolded.

log_end_msg () {

	# If no arguments were passed, return
	[ -z "$1" ] && return 1

	# Only do the fancy stuff if we have an appropriate terminal
	# and if /usr is already mounted
	TPUT=/usr/bin/tput
	EXPR=/usr/bin/expr
	if [ -x $TPUT ] && [ -x $EXPR ] && $TPUT hpa 60 >/dev/null 2>&1; then
		COLS=`$TPUT cols`
		if [ -n "$COLS" ]; then
			COL=`$EXPR $COLS - 7`
		else
			COL=73
		fi

		UP=`$TPUT cuu1`
		END=`$TPUT hpa $COL`
		START=`$TPUT hpa 0`
		RED=`$TPUT setaf 1`
		GREEN=`$TPUT setaf 2`
		NORMAL=`$TPUT op`
		if [ $1 -eq 0 ]; then
			echo "$UP$END[ ${GREEN}ok${NORMAL} ]"
		else
			echo -e "$UP$START $RED*$NORMAL$END[${RED}fail${NORMAL}]"
		fi
	else
		if [ $1 -eq 0 ]; then
			echo "   ...done."
		else
			echo "   ...fail!"
		fi
	fi
	return $1
}

STEP 3: You're done! Reboot!
- Reboot, and your resolution should be increased. Your [ ok ] messages should now be green.

Personally, I like this much better. Its simple to add colors and change colors.. just use the above as a base and take it from there! Enjoy

You can add MUCH more color than this. For example... To see my latest init-functions file, which produces the output in the crappy screenshot attached, click here. Download the attachment, and replace your init-functions file with mine. Backup first, as always!! Get creative, and post your init-functions file to share with the rest of us.

Thanks to this thread for getting me started.

- DavidG

(P.S. This is my first HOWTO )

[csowm5je]

Thanks.

[rpgcyco]

Cool, thanks for that.

- Rpg Cyco

[m0biu5]

What they said - love the increased res. =)

[bored2k]

I personally haven't done this nor I pretend to, but I wanted to point this out: if anyone's having problems with the vga=792 resolution, try vga=791. That's the one that worked when I installed splashy (wich I removed because I missed the text), not 792.

I would only do this trick if I made the text color black, but then I'd miss out on errors.

[TravisNewman]

It should be pointed out that the green "ok" messages violate standards for color blindness compatibility, so if you plan on releasing a distro any time soon, don't include that

I myself kinda like it.

[alvinpd]

cool and simple...

[John Nilsson]

If you find the framebuffer to be to sluggish (as I did) you might want to try SVGATextMode instead. Much snappier.

[sfhwq['chvS[WR]

Hi,

Earlier i tried to change the bootimage ect. Now all these packages like usplash ,splashy and splashy-themes are a little bit messed up.
After Grub comes the message "Starting...", then a blank screen and then just for half a secound 2 or 3 colorized lines before the login promt.

All i want is a black backgound, white text and an [ OK ] in green or a [ FAILED ] in red at the right from directly after Grub until my x-server starts

Please help me because i really don't have a clou how to do it.

P.s.: I have Edgy Eft installed.

[Xk2c]

All i want is a black backgound, white text and an [ OK ] in green or a [ FAILED ] in red at the right from directly after Grub until my x-server starts

remove "splash" from your kernel options in /boot/grub/menu.lst