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How to Change Your Login And Boot Screen In Ubuntu Lucid

By Damien / May 13, 2010Updated Jun 15, 2010 / Linux

The latest version of Ubuntu (10.04 Lucid) comes with a plymouth theme that allows more cool and animated screen to be displayed during boot up. While this is a great improvement, it also means that all the previous method of setting your own boot screen and login screen is no longer valid. For those who are not happy with the default boot and login screen, here is how you can change them in Ubuntu Lucid. At this moment, there is no GUI to handle this, so everything has to be done via the command line. Follow closely and you’ll be fine.

Changing the login screen

1. Move your favorite login wallpaper to your Home folder. Make sure that it is of .JPG format.

2. Move the wallpaper to the system wallpaper directory. In the terminal:

sudo mv ~/your-wallpaper-name.jpg /usr/share/backgrounds

3. Activate the Appearance window upon login

sudo cp /usr/share/applications/gnome-appearance-properties.desktop /usr/share/gdm/autostart/LoginWindow

4. Close the terminal. Log out of your current session. At the login screen, the Appearance window will show up. Go to the background tab and select your favorite wallpaper as the background. (If you can’t find your favorite wallpaper, click Add. You should be able to find your wallpaper in the /usr/share/backgrounds directory).

lucid-login-appearance

5. Your login background will instantly change to the wallpaper you have selected. Now login to your desktop.

lucid-login-screen

6. Open a terminal. Type the following command to deactivate the Appearance window upon login.

sudo unlink /usr/share/gdm/autostart/LoginWindow/gnome-appearance-properties.desktop

Changing the boot screen

The plymouth theme uses a theme framework to display the background and animation, so you won’t be able to take a simple wallpaper and put it on the boot screen. The Ubuntu repository comes with several plymouth themes that you can install in your system.

sudo apt-get install plymouth-theme-*

This will install all the plymouth themes in the repository.

Next, select the theme that you want to display:

sudo update-alternatives --config default.plymouth

you will see a list of the theme for you to choose. Type in the number of the theme you want and press Enter.

lucid-plymouth-selection

Update: According to Pvalley67, you have to run the following command to update the system. I have got it working without having to run the command, but you can do it if you are not seeing the new splash screen.

sudo update-initramfs -u

Restart your computer. You should see your new boot screen in action.

Damien Damien

Damien Oh started writing tech articles since 2007 and has over 10 years of experience in the tech industry. He is proficient in Windows, Linux, Mac, Android and iOS, and worked as a part time WordPress Developer. He is currently the owner and Editor-in-Chief of Make Tech Easier.

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37 comments

  1. commodoor
    May 13, 2010 at 1:31 pm

    It's possible with ubuntu-tweak. there is a option to change the background of login screen. it worked for me.

  2. Inukaze
    May 13, 2010 at 9:13 pm

    Oh plz , for Ubuntu USERS , add the PPA GDM2SEtup

    https://launchpad.net/gdm2setup

    And install it :=)

  3. Damien Oh
    May 14, 2010 at 12:27 am

    Ubuntu tweak can change the login screen, but not the boot screen. I tried it and it doesn't work.

  4. Damien Oh
    May 14, 2010 at 4:27 am

    Thanks for the recommendation, I guess I have missed it.

  5. Damien Oh
    May 14, 2010 at 4:27 am

    Ubuntu tweak can change the login screen, but not the boot screen. I tried it and it doesn't work.

  6. Pvalley67
    Jun 11, 2010 at 12:01 pm

    after you change the splash screen setting you need to do this
    sudo update-initramfs -u

    this is so the splash screen will show other wise your old screen will show up

  7. Damien Oh
    Jun 16, 2010 at 2:43 am

    Thanks. Updated the article.

  8. Jhall124
    Jul 15, 2010 at 2:40 pm

    How do we change it back to the default?

  9. Pieter
    Jul 21, 2010 at 7:39 am

    I only want to know where I can get that sexy beach wallpaper of yours?

  10. Sam
    Jul 23, 2010 at 6:10 am

    Step by step instruction to completely change your boot image : http://unlimblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/changing-…

  11. fiendamundo
    Jul 28, 2010 at 5:11 pm

    I had a problem with low-res ubuntu resolution for the plymouth screen, but this site helped me fix it:

    http://news.softpedia.com/news/How-to-Fix-the-B…

  12. Empireoflyle
    Nov 18, 2010 at 6:24 am

    worked for me. Thanks!

  13. Imdeemvp
    Nov 23, 2010 at 9:09 pm

    Nice …. thank you for this little how-to !!! Worked for me in Linux Mint.

    1. legion1978
      Jan 2, 2011 at 6:28 am

      hi there.. did u have to do any additional step for linuxmint? i can only see the plymouth thing upon system shutdown, not at start.

      thnx

  14. Okrah Asante
    Dec 9, 2010 at 1:37 pm

    thanks, it worked for me too

  15. niki
    Dec 12, 2010 at 10:19 pm

    This was very helpful! Thank you! Both tweaks worked fine in Ubuntu 10.04!

  16. SAMVASITY
    Dec 14, 2010 at 5:48 pm

    It stucks on the boot screen! IT DOESN’T WORKS FOR UBUNTU 10.04!!!!!

  17. legion1978
    Jan 2, 2011 at 6:29 am

    Hi..
    Do u guys know where this config gets written? i want to [try to] make the background to change randomly, so i figure that making a script rewriting the specific background entry might work.

    thnx

  18. AC
    Feb 14, 2011 at 3:31 pm

    Worked for me in LM10. Thanks!

  19. Prometheus
    Feb 28, 2011 at 10:15 am

    Hi, thanks for the guide:)

    I managed to change the login background, but the step where I write:
    sudo unlink /usr/share/gdm/autostart/LoginWindow/gnome-appearance-properties.desktop
    doesn’t work for me, so I’m stuck with the appearance-selector when I want to log in (I’m using ubuntu 10.10, so I guess there have been some small changes since this guide was made). Anyway, do you have any ideas on how I might solve it? Listing the contents of the /usr/share/gdm/autostart/LoginWindow/ directory in case it helps:)

    at-spi-registryd-wrapper.desktop libcanberra-ready-sound.desktop
    gdm-simple-greeter.desktop metacity.desktop
    gnome-mag.desktop onboard.desktop
    gnome-power-manager.desktop orca-screen-reader.desktop
    gnome-settings-daemon.desktop

    1. Prometheus
      Feb 28, 2011 at 10:22 am

      Woops, now it seems to have disappeared after all:) So disregard my previous post.
      Thanks again:)

  20. Terrytheguy
    Mar 12, 2011 at 3:38 pm

    worked for me, ubuntu 10.10
    thank you ~

  21. deww
    Mar 19, 2011 at 2:14 am

    how to remove backgrounds that you have added from the usr directory??

    1. Damien Oh
      Mar 20, 2011 at 9:08 am

      Use the above steps to first change the background. Next, open your Nautilus (as root) and navigate to the wallpaper folder and delete the wallpaper, if that is what you mean by “remove”.

  22. Omer
    Mar 29, 2011 at 9:48 pm

    thanks buddy……… using Lucid Lynx

  23. akshay birajdar
    Apr 18, 2011 at 6:46 am

    great its work on linux mint 10…. thanx buddy!!!!!!!!!

  24. Icemanblogger
    May 3, 2011 at 3:06 pm

    i’ve lost my login text on 10.10 and 11.04 after cp or linking it to login boot, its appears as square fonts… any help?

    1. Eric S
      Oct 10, 2011 at 6:26 am

      you have to have utf-8 fonts installed or you just get block text.

  25. Peter
    May 8, 2011 at 1:31 am

    worked thanks

  26. Lbmagma360
    May 28, 2011 at 2:23 am

    It’s not working for me. I’m using Ubuntu 10.10.
    Every time I add my image, which is a .jpg, a blank screen appears instead of the image.
    Any ideas about fixing this issue will be of great help.

    1. Eric S
      Oct 10, 2011 at 6:25 am

      yeah, it has to be a .png of 500K or less.

  27. AMcG
    May 29, 2011 at 3:51 pm

    Tx.  Tried login screen change for 11.04 and works well.

  28. Thong Nguyen
    Aug 8, 2011 at 7:20 pm

    how to change the size of boot screen?
     

  29. Gunter_lab
    Sep 11, 2011 at 3:20 am

    the only problem is that it keeps opening the background settings every time i log in
    how can i stop that?

  30. Twig Mac
    Oct 28, 2011 at 3:29 am

     Brilliant! Thanks for sharing!

  31. Ghgieger
    Dec 4, 2011 at 8:00 am

    to stop the appearance set up page from  use the following command.

     sudo unlink /usr/share/gdm/autostart/LoginWindow/gnome-appearance-properties.desktop

  32. Anon
    Apr 30, 2012 at 11:22 am

    Works well on 10.04LTS Thanks!

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