argon-grub-theme

• Configurable, modern theme for the GRUB, containing backgrounds, icons, fonts and styling
  • Backgrounds, fonts and fontsize can all be customised
  • Wallpaper source files can be found here
  • Some of the icons used are from here
• Any donations are greatly appreciated :)

Installation:

Usage: sudo ./install.sh [OPTIONS]

Required arguments: [—install + —background / —uninstall / —preview]

• If the repository is updated, make clean should be run, to erase cached assets

Fixing common problems:

• Secure Boot can cause some assets (primarily fonts) to fail to load, as they’re not signed
• The simplest fix to to disable Secure Boot in BIOS
• Alternatively, the files can be signed and enrolled after installation, but this method varies by distro

Examples:

• Install the theme for a 4k display, using the Night wallpaper:

  • sudo ./install.sh --install --resolution 4k --background Night

• Install the theme for a 4k display, using the Night wallpaper and a font size of 32:

  • sudo ./install.sh --install --resolution 4k --background Night --fontsize 32

• Install the theme for an unknown resolution, using the Crystals wallpaper:

  • sudo ./install.sh --install --resolution custom --background Crystals

• Install the theme for a custom resolution (1024x720), using a solid magenta wallpaper:

  • sudo ./install.sh --install --resolution 1024x720 --custom "#ff00ff"

• Preview the theme with a fontsize of 32, a white font colour, black selected font colour and white timer colour:

  • ./install.sh -p -b Crystals -fs 32 -fc "white,#000000,white"

• Preview the theme with a different font:

  • ./install.sh -p -b Crystals -f Terminus.ttf

• Install the theme into /boot/grub/themes:

  • sudo ./install.sh -i -e -b Night

• Uninstall the theme:

  • sudo ./install.sh -u

Screenshots:

Preview is compressed, the backgrounds are higher quality

• Some individual images at end of document

Dependencies:

Mandatory:

• make - Used for the build system
• imagemagick / convert - Used to generate backgrounds with custom colours
• inkscape - Used to generate pngs from svgs (Used by make generate-all)
  • inkscape is needed if the fontsize used isn’t 16, 24 or 32
  • If optipng is present, generated icons will be losslessly compressed

    Optional:

• python3 - Used when generating icons, or when using a custom fontsize
• optipng - Used to losslessly compress pngs (Used by make compress-backgrounds, make generate-gif, make generate-icons and make generate-select)
• grub2-theme-preview - Used to preview themes (Used by —preview)

Updating:

• Clone the repository: git clone https://github.com/stuarthayhurst/argon-grub-theme.git
  • If it’s already cloned, just run git pull
• Clear the asset cache: make clean
• Install like normal

Preview the theme:

• Follow the instructions at grub2-theme-preview to install the program
  • Your distro might require using a virtual environment, this can be done with the following:
    • python3 -m venv .venv
    • source .venv/bin/activate
    • pip3 install grub2-theme-preview
    • Install grub2-theme-preview’s dependencies using your distro’s package manager
• Run the install script with your desired options, but replace —install / -i with —preview / -p
• For example: ./install.sh --preview --background Crystals.png --resolution 4k

Using a different resolution:

• Use ./install.sh -r to list available resolutions, and ./install.sh -r [RESOLUTION] to use one
• Any resolution can be used with ./install.sh -r custom and a custom background

Using a custom background:

• Find the resolution of your display, and make sure your background matches the resolution
• Place your custom background inside the root of the project
• Run the installer like normal, but with --background [filename.png] and --resolution [YOUR_RESOLUTION]
  • Resolutions:
    • 16 (1920x1080 -> 1080p, 2560x1440 -> 2k, 3840x2160 -> 4k)
    • 16 (1920x1200, 2240x1400, 3840x2400)
  • Make sure to replace [YOUR_RESOLUTION] with your resolution and [THEME] with the theme
• To use a custom colour background, don’t pass --background
  • Pass --resolution [YOUR_RESOLUTION] --custom "[COLOUR_CODE]"
  • For example, --resolution 1920x1080 --custom "#ff00ff" to use a magenta 1080p background

Forcing an icon:

• Find the name / class of the icon in assets/svg/icons/
  • For example, assets/svg/icons/linuxmint.svg would be linuxmint
• Add the class to the corresponding entry in /boot/grub/grub.cfg:
  • Change: menuentry 'Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon 64-bit' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu
  • To: menuentry 'Linux Mint 18.3 Cinnamon 64-bit' --class linuxmint --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu
• Save the file and exit

Adding your own icon:

• Add a 32x32 .svg of the icon into assets/svg/icons/
  • If using colourless icons or planning to push the changes upstream, put a colourless copy in assets/svg/icons-colourless
• Make sure inkscape, python3 and optipng are installed
• Run make generate-icons -j$(nproc)
• Install as normal
• If those dependencies can’t be installed, or you can’t use a .svg, place 32x32, 48x48 and 64x64 versions of the icon in the corresponding directories in assets/icons/
• Install as normal, but if --fontsize is used, the custom icon won’t be used

Gallery:

Makefile options:

• Makefile respects core count specified by -j[Core count]
• make clean - Remove assets generated at build time
• make full-clean - Remove all generated assets
• make generate-all - Generate all assets
• make compress-backgrounds - Compress backgrounds losslessly

Contributing:

• If you made changes to any images, or added a new one:
  • Run make full-clean
  • Run make generate-all
• If the change was to a background, scale the background for each resolution, then:
  • Run make compress-backgrounds
• Create a pull request from your branch or fork
• If any issues occur, report them to the issue page
• Thank you :)

Copyright and credits:

• Terminus font: Copyright (c) 2019 Dimitar Toshkov Zhekov, fonts/Terminus-License.txt
• Unifont: The GNU Project - fonts/Unifont-License.txt
• Theme originally based off of grub2-themes
  • Code is upstreamed where possible