How to change boot splash screen in 18.04

I have done this in the past in 16.04 and 17.10 but in 18.04 I can not get plymouth manager to work. Downloaded it from the software center but it doesn't work. Is there a guide available that will let me do it in terminal?

Solution 1:

The same methods described here, do still work in 18.04.

NB: between 14.04 and 16.04 the location of Plymouth themes changed to /usr/share/plymouth/themes. If you have an old theme its .plymouth file might point to /lib/plymouth/themes/.

Installing a new theme

Easy if it's packaged - sudo apt install

Otherwise you need to copy its folder or extract its archive to /usr/share/plymouth/themes. Then you need to install it...

sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/share/plymouth/themes/default.plymouth default.plymouth /usr/share/plymouth/themes/THEME/THEME.plymouth 100

...replacing THEME with the theme name.

Choosing the theme

sudo update-alternatives --config default.plymouth
sudo update-initramfs -u

Testing

You can also test Plymouth without rebooting...

sudo apt install plymouth-x11

sudo plymouthd ; sudo plymouth --show-splash ; for ((I=0; I<10; I++)); do sleep 1 ; sudo plymouth --update=test$I ; done ; sudo plymouth --quit