Ubuntu 14.04 Custom Boot Screen

In this video tutorial, we are going to be branding our Ubuntu 14.04 Desktop with corporate wallpaper. Creating a Ubuntu 14.04 custom boot screen that we can see during the boot and shutdown stages. During this start-up and shutdown phase of the system, the wallpaper will be shown. Ubuntu uses Plymouth themes for this so we will create a simple corporate theme.

Create the Theme Directory

Firstly we must create the directory to house our new theme. Acting as root we will create the directory in the /lib/plymouth/themes folder:

sudo mkdir /lib/plymouth/themes/tup

We will need to add the wallpaper into this directory. Checking that the image for the wallpaper is in the required PNG format.

The Theme File

Binding the theme together we have a definition. We need to create the file /lib/plymouth/themes/tup/tup.theme. The file content will be similar to the following

[Plymouth Theme]
Name=Tup
Description=Wallpaper only
ModuleName=script
[script]
ImageDir=/lib/plymouth/themes/tup
ScriptFile=/lib/plymouth/themes/tup/tup.script

The Script

The theme script has the actions that need to be carried out. This is quite simple and simply sets the wallpaper. Create the script file /lib/plymouth/themes/tup/tup.script

wallpaper_image = Image(“800.png”);
screen_width = Window.GetWidth();
screen_height = Window.GetHeight();
resized_wallpaper_image = wallpaper_image.Scale(screen_width,screen_height);
wallpaper_sprite = Sprite(resized_wallpaper_image);
wallpaper_sprite.SetZ(-100);

Supporting the  execution of the script we need to install the plymouth script module:

apt-get install plymouth-theme-script

Register the Theme

Next, we register the theme using the command update-alternatives

sudo update-alternatives --install /lib/plymouth/themes/default.plymouth default.plymouth \
/lib/plymouth/themes/tup/tup.plymouth 100

Additionally, we can set it as the default theme

sudo update-alternatives --config default.plymouth

And finally update the the ram disk to make it available during the boot phase

sudo update-initramfs -u

When finished reboot and you should be able to see your handy work