How to customize Grub2 splash and menu?

I’m new to Fedora, using 38 beta at the moment. I would like to put a custom photo on my grub boot screen and have the grub menu show by default. But after reading the fedora grub documentation I’m still a bit confused about how to do it. Any help appreciated. Thanks.

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sudo grub2-editenv - unset menu_auto_hide

also see https://hansdegoede.livejournal.com/19081.html

sudo dnf install grub-customizer

Note: manipulation of grub files has the potential to break your boot process. you have been warned.

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Thank you for the quick reply appreciate it. :slight_smile:
Grub-customizer did not work though. is there manual way to add photo?

I am not familiar, I don’t even get to see my grub, so I can’t help, but maybe you find out from the following package how they set GRUB_BACKGROUND successfully.

https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/grub2-breeze-theme

https://itsfoss.com/grub-customizer-fedora/
https://www.golinuxcloud.com/change-grub2-background-image-splash-screen/

Also you want to make sure the path to the .png file is readable by grub, and not placed in /usr/somewhere that could be luks-locked at the time of grub loading.

Probably placing that file in or under /boot/grub2 would be best. I think most themes for grub create a themes directory as /boot/grub2/themes or some such.

100% :bluethumb:

grub-customizer is more likely to break your bootloader than provide a working theme on Fedora, because it doesn’t understand BLSCFG.

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What is good for Gnome is good for other apps too.

Some words to the “Distro Hoppers Submarines”, we know you exist and we do realize you are arising from the deeps of the Linux Distro abbys, always when beta/new releases are announced.

We do appreciate your work spreading the word of our beloved Distribution. But please focus on facts and not on “Make up”.

Grub2 is a good example of an application who got famous when function still came before “good looking buttons and Icons”. It was used simply to boot, doing the work in the dark, almost unseen to switch from one kernel version to an other or if needed boot in to an other OS.

And by the way, yes we already talked about theming grub2. So please use the search engine before making a new Topic. We do love to help, but we do have our head into other, more important and functional work to optimize the distribution so, that it will work/shine also after the boot screen.

Hey by the way, did you see our new community website? Check it out www.fedoraproject.org

Totally disagree with this one. Linux is all about freedom, in any way you can think. I personally hate the “boxing” route Gnome has taken a long time now. Where oh where are the days one could customize almost anything you wanted to customize, just for the fun of it. Looks do matter, you know.

P.S.
Isn’t linux also ment to work on older hardware, plenty of time to see grubs splash :wink:

No problem, you can do what ever you like. I just expressed what the makers of Gnome shared with their community.

Feel free to change it. Just do not expect that they integrate it in gnome as they created it “boxed”.

Fedoras default is, as it comes from grub it selves, pitch black alias invisible.
From the point of view to add value to the Fedora project, this is very individual the “looks”. Especially in grub, as this is not the focus of the project.

I really wonder why individuals are so focused on a theme for grub (as noted above).

For me the grub menu is hidden (unless I choose to display it) and the total boot time for my workstation is < 10 seconds from power on to login. A theme would be totally wasted since it might only be displayed for that miniscule amount of time.

Yes, I have now switched to an SSD for the OS, but even when using an HDD for the OS it still was only about 15 seconds. That does of course depend upon ones overall hardware config but if one powers on the device and busies themselves preparing to work then the few seconds the grub screen may display is not something they are staring at anyway.

I guess one who wants bling might disagree but we can agree to disagree.

with all due respect, Jeff, it is not up to you to question why. It is enough that someone else wants to (and many users more, see fora). For me -i.e.- it is irritating that something that could be customized isn’t anymore (grub theme worked fine here) and thus is made ‘less open’ than before. Same for Gnome. For me that is regression.

I started with Linux in the mid-90s, from the prompt. We had a lot to do also. Still end user wishes were taken seriously -how insignificant for us it seemed-. Popularity of linux depended very much of acceptance by end users, hence ‘looks’ were very important. Even in the textbase years. Remember the border character discussions?