Plymouth

[marja]

Is there a fast way to change the colours of all the png's in /usr/share/plymouth/themes/Mageia-Default
from white-grey-blue to pink-purple-dark purple? I can change them one by one, but that takes a lot of time

Where can I find screenshots of the available plymouth themes?

What is the fastest way to make your own theme (I'm not used to doing artwork), e.g. a Hello Kitty theme?

I'm probably making a fool of myself... being in too much of a hurry to find out if plymouth itself can take care of all I want, sorry

[marja]

I'm only trying this because I want to keep all my users happy, and I didn't dare to install Mageia on a system of a girl with a very girlish taste. If I succeed, I can upgrade her system to Mageia 1 instead of Mandriva 2011.

Well, I tried a different plymouth theme but that didn't change as much as I had hoped... there are still too many default dark blue Mageia screens to be seen while booting and starting KDE. After that, I changed the colours of the following files to some shades of pink and a bit of purple:


/usr/share/plymouth/themes/Mageia-Default/background.png
/usr/share/plymouth/themes/Mageia-Default/suspend.png
/usr/share/plymouth/themes/Mageia-Default/bullet.png
/usr/share/plymouth/themes/Mageia-Default/logo_mageia.png
/usr/share/plymouth/themes/Mageia-Default/progress_box.png
/usr/share/plymouth/themes/Mageia-Default/progress-bar0.png
/usr/share/plymouth/themes/Mageia-Default/progress-bar1.png
/usr/share/plymouth/themes/Mageia-Default/progress-bar2.png
/usr/share/plymouth/themes/Mageia-Default/progress-bar3.png
/usr/share/plymouth/themes/Mageia-Default/progress-bar4.png
/usr/share/plymouth/themes/Mageia-Default/progress-bar5.png
/usr/share/plymouth/themes/Mageia-Default/progress-bar6.png
/usr/share/plymouth/themes/Mageia-Default/progress-bar7.png
/usr/share/plymouth/themes/Mageia-Default/progress-bar8.png
/usr/share/plymouth/themes/Mageia-Default/progress-bar9.png

/usr/share/gfxboot/themes/Mageia-Default/back.jpg
/usr/share/gfxboot/themes/Mageia-Default/welcome.jpg

and changed back to the Mageia-Default theme (now pink/purple). I like that better, I'm getting near to what I want, but I still need to find out how to change the GRUB-colours and the KDE-loading screen.

[dwightpaige79]

Well I can't help much with the girly girl stuff. But I would like to learn how to do that too. In fact I would like to learn how to do what you have already done. I was going to suggest kde-look.org but there aren't many Plymouth themes there.

http://kde-look.org/index.php?xcontentmode=79

You might get better answers as to how to customize Plymouth theme at the KDE forum.

http://forum.kde.org/index.php

[alf]

If You changed anything in the plymouth script, You have to reinstall the apropriate theme, that means rebuild the initrd

Code: Select all

plymouth-set-default-theme -R <theme>

There are tons of plymouth bootsplashes spread over the www; who will for all these themes make screenshots and put them to one place?

The simplest thing to create a new plymouth theme is, take an existing, rename it, put the wallpapers, logos etc you want in the apropriate folder and work on the script to get it run.
Unfortunately there's not much documentation about making own plymouth themes, so it is often "trial and error" to come to an end. Look into existing themes and see what others have done. I mostly do my themes by C&P from others.

[doktor5000]

Here is a bigger collection of Plymouth themes: http://opendesktop.org/?xsection=art
Look under Bootsplash in the left pane.

And IIRC you can edit some settings for the plugins plymouth uses to display themes.
Also there's the Plymouth themeing guide:
http://brej.org/blog/?p=158
http://brej.org/blog/?p=174

[marja]

@Dwight Thanks for the links
All I did so far, was copy the files I mentioned to my home directory and edit them with the Gimp. From the Gimp menu, I choose Kleuren, I suppose that is something like Colours in English and from the drop-down menu I choose Afbeelding verkleuren, that should be something like Colourize image.
I choose the tint, verzadiging and helderheid (probably tone, saturation and brightness) I wanted and saved those preferences as a preset, so the next files were easier to edit. After finishing, I copied them back to where they came from, as root, of course.
Then, still as root, I did

Code: Select all

plymouth-set-default-theme Mageia-Default
/usr/libexec/plymouth/plymouth-generate-initrd
/usr/libexec/plymouth/plymouth-update-initrd

But Alf's post makes clear that my three commands can be replaced by one:

Code: Select all

plymouth-set-default-theme -R Mageia-Default

Oh, to try a different available theme I choose and installed one in MCC and replaced Mageia-Default in the code above by the name of that theme.

@ Alf Thank you very much for showing a better way to set a different theme!

@ Doktor5000 Great links, thanks a lot

[doktor5000]

I'd only like to add that Plymouth has nothing to do with KDE, so i don't know why Dwight suggested getting help in KDE forums.
That is really the wrong place for it, a better place would be to look at Plymouth's fd.o site how to contact the developers directly:
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Software/Plymouth
Here you can subscribe for their mailing list, and also search through the archive: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/plymouth

There is also another good link listed there: http://blog.fpmurphy.com/2009/09/project-plymouth.html
Also here another one if you want to do your own themes: http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/Softwar ... th/Scripts

[alf]

@marja, if You intend to play around with plymouth bootsplashes, may be i've some little helpers for that to be found here:
Plymouth Theme Switcher
plymouth installer script

[marja]

@ Doktor5000
I do understand Dwights suggestion, it is because I didn't stick to my subject. I said "I still need to find out how to change the GRUB-colours and the KDE-loading screen" . So I started the confusion, sorry!

@ Alf & @ Doktor5000
Vielen Dank! Echt nett, daß Sie beiden mir so gut helfen

I wish there were more hours in a day, I can't wait to read, learn and try everything.

[doktor5000]

/me is hoping to get some cookies or even better, free beer

For the KDE splash, maybe look here: http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?t=57491
or here http://forum.kde.org/viewtopic.php?f=66&t=87527

[marja]

Well, next time you visit Rotterdam I'll pay your beer... or provide you with some delicious stroopwafels
Thanks for the new links, great, they look good!

[marja]

No more need to install Mandriva to make my girlish user happy: bootsplash and ksplash and the welcome screen in between are pink now.... I'm so glad

I don't intend to stop now, I really liked doing this and as soon as I find enough time, I'll try to do other themes and try to do things better (of course it was wrong not to change the names of the files and directories I changed, I should have put _pink behind them)

@ Alf: To download your scripts, I understand that I must become a member of MandrivaUser.de. But I'm not using Mandriva anymore, so it feels wrong to become a member now (although, had I already been a member, I wouldn't have stopped being one yet).

[alf]

@ Alf: To download your scripts, I understand that I must become a member of MandrivaUser.de. But I'm not using Mandriva anymore, so it feels wrong to become a member now (although, had I already been a member, I wouldn't have stopped being one yet).

No, You needn't become a member of mandrivauser.de, the downloadlink for plymouth-theme-switcher is accessible for everyone. The plymouth installer script is part of the breathing_tux plymouth bootsplash downloadable on kde-look.org

Alf

[marja]

You're right, thanks. I've now downloaded both of them

[alf]

fine, if You experice any problem with the proggies, feel free to contact me directly.

[marja]

Danke schön!
Es kann aber ne Weile dauern bis ich über genügend Zeit verfüge