A Prettier rEFIt

[simplebeep]

For those of you doing a dual-boot of Ubuntu and OS X (and are already using rEFIt, which I would strongly recommend), I have put together a set of changes you can make to the rEFIt conf and icons, to make the interface better-looking and more Mac-like.

rEFIt-icons.zip

Put those files in their locations, as indicated by the folder hierarchy. DO NOT REPLACE THE EFI FOLDER ENTIRELY! Simply pull the files out of the archive and insert them in their respective folders. Note that you might want to rename the old icons before inserting, to avoid losing them to replacing, if you wish to go back.

Then, modify the refit.conf file. Here's what I did:

• Under the line that says "#disable all", I put disable tools (no #) to get a simpler interface. This removes the row of small icons below the boot options.
• I removed the "#"s from the lines beginning with "selection_big" and "selection_small". Note that the icons have underscores _ instead of hyphens - in their names, so be sure to change the hyphens to underscores in the conf file.
• I also removed the "#" in front of hidebadges internal. That will remove some extra clutter.
• Under "#hideui all", I entered hideui banner label funcs to remove even more clutter.

You can leave some of the lower icons enabled, if you wish. I haven't created any icons for these or for Windows (as I don't use them), but you can sample the colours from the other icons and create your own, perhaps. If you do create icons, I'd love for you to post them here. Just be sure to put them in a Zip file, so they don't get J-Pegged.

I'll post a screenshot of this setup soon.

[cyberdork33]

I made an Ubuntu Icon awhile ago... I will if I can find it.

[Clouseau__]

Thanks a lot for your post ... I had read refit's documentation on how to do this but you just saved me a lot of time, and your icons are great!

Clouseau__

[simplebeep]

Well, I don't know how to take a screenshot of the boot menu. I know it's possible, but to save myself time, I just created this mockup of what it looks like. Although not exact, it will give you a pretty good idea of what my modifications do.

mockup.png
Click for a bigger version.

Oh, and thank you, Clouseau__ for your feedback.

[lael]

Thank you for sharing your experiences with rEFIt. I like your theme.

I just blogged about one that I came up with: http://colinharrington.net/blog/inde...el-macs-slick/ It contains all the resources that you need to do recreate it.



Closeup:


I really didn't like the apple grey/silver. Let me know if you find a way to get rid of it on the boot_linux screen after you select your OS.

I also put together an ubuntu icon for the boot_linux.icns icon

[inphektion]

Nice guys this is great. I definitley like black better too.

[inphektion]

I followed your post and have replaced the icons but the screen is still silver/gray not like your shot where it is black. you mentioned hostname.bmp sets the background with the top left pixel...

I created a hostname.bmp but it doesn't seem to be used, I did set it in the .conf file. does that bitmap have to be a certain size? I just arbitratily picked 190x90

[Joushou]

Nice theme... The grey in the background of boot_linux.icns is a bit off though... Can't the background be transparent on that?
Now you just need to theme the rest of refit, so we can have pretty utilities aswell

[iovis9]

The grey one looks very nice. Great work man.

[timxirish]

In regards to both of the themes shared, very cool. I'm typing this from my macbook right now, and will definitely give them a shot.