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is a great improvement, it also means that all the previous method of setting your own boot screen and login screen is no longer valid.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).
5. Your login background will instantly change to the wallpaper you have selected. Now login to your desktop.
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.
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 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.
37 comments
Comments are closed.
It's possible with ubuntu-tweak. there is a option to change the background of login screen. it worked for me.
Oh plz , for Ubuntu USERS , add the PPA GDM2SEtup
https://launchpad.net/gdm2setup
And install it :=)
Ubuntu tweak can change the login screen, but not the boot screen. I tried it and it doesn't work.
Thanks for the recommendation, I guess I have missed it.
Ubuntu tweak can change the login screen, but not the boot screen. I tried it and it doesn't work.
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
Thanks. Updated the article.
How do we change it back to the default?
I only want to know where I can get that sexy beach wallpaper of yours?
Step by step instruction to completely change your boot image : http://unlimblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/changing-…
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…
worked for me. Thanks!
Nice …. thank you for this little how-to !!! Worked for me in Linux Mint.
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
thanks, it worked for me too
This was very helpful! Thank you! Both tweaks worked fine in Ubuntu 10.04!
It stucks on the boot screen! IT DOESN’T WORKS FOR UBUNTU 10.04!!!!!
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
Worked for me in LM10. Thanks!
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
Woops, now it seems to have disappeared after all:) So disregard my previous post.
Thanks again:)
worked for me, ubuntu 10.10
thank you ~
how to remove backgrounds that you have added from the usr directory??
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”.
thanks buddy……… using Lucid Lynx
great its work on linux mint 10…. thanx buddy!!!!!!!!!
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?
you have to have utf-8 fonts installed or you just get block text.
worked thanks
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.
yeah, it has to be a .png of 500K or less.
Tx. Tried login screen change for 11.04 and works well.
how to change the size of boot screen?
the only problem is that it keeps opening the background settings every time i log in
how can i stop that?
Brilliant! Thanks for sharing!
to stop the appearance set up page from use the following command.
sudo unlink /usr/share/gdm/autostart/LoginWindow/gnome-appearance-properties.desktop
Works well on 10.04LTS Thanks!