The plymouth theme was introduced in Ubuntu Lucid to provide a better theming solution for the splash theme. With plymouth, one can use a high resolution image as the background and also get it to show animation. The only thing that will put off many newbies is that the theme can only be changed using command line. That is until Zorin Splash Screen Manager comes along.
Zorin Splash Screen Manager is a simple GUI that allows anyone to change the splash theme easily. It is only released few days back, so it is still short of features. However, for the one thing that it did (changing of themes), it sure did its job well.
Installation and Usage
Download Zorin splash manager. The installer is available for 32 and 64 bit computer and is in .deb form, so you just have to double click the downloaded file to install it.
Once the installation is completed, go to “System-> Administration -> Splash Screen Manager“.
The Zorin splash manager is only a small window with few options.
Before you get started, go to Gnome-look to source for your favorite plymouth theme. Download the tar.gz file to your desktop.
To install custom plymouth theme, click on the “Install” button and select the tar.gz file that you have downloaded.
To change the splash theme, click the “Change Default Theme” button. A window will pop up showing the plymouth theme location. You have to go to the theme folder and choose the file with the .plymouth extension.
Click Open. Zorin Splash Manager will proceed to change your splash theme.
What is lacking here is the ability to preview your splash theme without rebooting your computer. You can, however, use the following commands to check out your newly set splash theme
sudo plymouthd plymouth --show-splash |
To hide the preview:
sudo plymouth quit |
Download Zorin Splash Screen Manager
Image credit: Internauta2000
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This is very helpful. I’ve been meaning to change my splash screen but have been too lazy to work it out on the command line. Wasn’t aware of Zorin Splash Manager, but I’ll try it out when I get home tonight. Thanks!