What alternatives are available to replace the purple boot splash screen?

I would love an animated splash screen, just for a bit of eye candy to replace the purple splash (with 4 dots) during the boot sequence. I know it will slow down boot time but I don't care I just want it to look good. When I show my friends how much better looking Ubuntu is than windows the splash really lets it down.

Any one know a good alternative to the existing Plymouth boot?

I could not get mine to change the splash screen (with terminal or gui apps), and it is now broken, it just shows a load of error messages at boot but still starts Ubuntu.

Solution 1:

Ubuntu Sunrise (plymouth)

I use an old favorite "Ubuntu Sunrise" in 12.04 (In fact I have been using it since 10.04 LTS). It's easy to install (instructions below) and it has never caused me any issues. However you should note that changing your Plymouth may cause resolution issues depending on your own resolution.

INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS

Step 1:

Download the Plymouth Sunrise deb file from here.

Step 2:

Open the Terminal (Ctrl-Alt-T) and type

gksudo nautilus

Step 3

• Copy ubuntu-sunrise folder to /lib/plymouth/themes
• Copy the file splash into /etc/initramfs-tools/conf.d (Optional, for better buffer)

Step 4:

Type in the terminal

sudo update-alternatives --install /lib/plymouth/themes/default.plymouth default.plymouth /lib/plymouth/themes/ubuntu-sunrise/ubuntu-sunrise.plymouth 200
sudo update-alternatives --config default.plymouth

Step 5:

Choose the number associated with ubuntu-sunrise in the options that pop up.

Step 6

Type in the terminal

sudo update-initramfs -u

Then

sudo reboot

That's it.

Note: Some people have issues installing other Plymouth themes (I've never had any) and I would strongly advise you to take a look at these issues here at Ask Ubuntu to familiarise yourself.

Solution 2:

Changing the boot-splash colour from Purple to Black (but maintain the Ubuntu logo)

If you don't like the purple screen when you first turn on the computer and want to change it to black.

Here are the instructions to accomplish this.

1. Open the file /lib/plymouth/themes/ubuntu-logo/ubuntu-logo.script with a text editor
2. Find the two lines quoted below in the script

3. Change all the values in the brackets to “0” then save the file

   Window.SetBackgroundTopColor (0.0, 0.00, 0.0); # Nice colour on top of the screen fading to 
   Window.SetBackgroundBottomColor (0.0, 0.00, 0.0); # an equally nice colour on the bottom
   

4. Run the following command in the terminal

   sudo update-initramfs -u
   

The colour of the boot splash background will now be black instead of purple when you reboot.