Tutorial: Ubuntu 10.04 – Grub 2 with Themes

May 5, 2010
Jason Ernst
2 Comments

Categories: Linux, Tutorials

Tags: Burg, Grub 2.0, Lucid, Ubuntu 10.04

In this post, I will show you how to install grub 2 with themes so that you can replace the standard text-based grub menu with something that looks a bit nicer. This tutorial will use code which is under development, so it may be best not to use on an important machine. We will actually replace grub with something called burg, which is a developmental branch of grub.

First, enable the repository for burg by editing your /etc/apt/sources.list file to include the following:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/bean123ch/burg/ubuntu lucid main

deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/bean123ch/burg/ubuntu lucid main

Next, (optional) to remove any warnings about gpg signatures, enter the following commands:

gpg --keyserver subkeys.pgp.net --recv 55708F1EE06803C5

gpg --export --armor 55708F1EE06803C5 | sudo apt-key add -

Then we need to update apt and install burg:

sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get install burg-pc burg burg-themes

This will prompt you to select several options along the way, so far I’ve just selected the default options since they seem to be detected from your existing grub install. The important one is to select the correct disk (Note: I’ve only tested in a non-raid system, so I don’t know how it will behave with this setup).

On the next restart, we should see a graphical grub menu, something like this:

Ubuntu 10.04 with Graphical Grub Template

By default you will probably get the ubuntu template, and you can change the template by pressing ‘t’ during the grub screen. It should also remember which one was last selected.

Note: I have experienced some problems with a fresh install of ubuntu 10.04 and SLI video cards. Burg’s graphics mode seems to confuse ubuntu and it gets stuck on boot. If this happens, you can boot in recovery mode and install the restricted nvidia driver. Then on next boot everything should be fine.

Note 2: Occasionally, when Ubuntu updates, grub may install over your burg installation. In order to get burg back, you need to issue the following command: “burg-install /dev/sda” where /dev/sda is the partition you want to install burg onto. You may also want to “update-burg” in order to detect your latest updates.

Sources:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Burg
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=9231199

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