[LUGSB] Re: Hi-Res GRUB splash images

[Arjun G. Menon]

Hi,

Thanks for the advice. First of all, I meant the GRUB splash. The
compressed image in the /boot folder. I'm running Kubuntu and the GRUB
manager that's comes with it has a nice interface through which I
convert an image file (like JPG), into this compressed image file and
use it for my GRUB splash. Only problem is, there is a huge
quality/resolution drop when converted, which as you said looks like
640x480 and 16 colors. It looks like GRUB doesn't support higher
resolutions, so I'll check out GRUB 2 and let you know about my
experiences.

On Sat, Nov 15, 2008 at 7:13 PM, James Crasta <jcrasta at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 11:26 PM, Arjun G. Menon <arjungmenon at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I was just wondering if there is any way to have high-resolution
>> images (1280x800) as background on GRUB?
>
> Do you actually mean GRUB? or do you mean BootSplash?   GRUB, the
> bootloader where you choose your OS, does not support high resolution
> VESA modes, and just runs at the default VGA mode available which is
> 640x480 and 16 colors.   Once you start loading your kernel, you can
> have it immediately switch to a high resolution with high colors and
> BootSplash can show a full-size image.  This may be tricky at 1280x800
> since that's not a classic VESA mode, but 1024x768 will probably scale
> to full screen.   If you only have one OS, you can just configure grub
> to skip the menu and jump right to your distro and the short amount of
> time you're at low resolution will be nearly unnoticeable.  This makes
> recovery from botched configs hard though.
>
> If you actually want a graphical bootloader while retaining the
> ability to choose your OS, your choices are limited.
>
> If your machine in question is a PC, you can try Grub 2
> (http://grub.enbug.org/) which has support for VESA modes.  I wouldn't
> recommend this unless you're comfortable restoring your MBR or have an
> extra small partition to play around with Grub 2 while retaining Grub
> 1 on your MBR.   Anyway Grub 2 is in development, but their intent is
> a graphical bootloader which can run at higher resolutions.   Your
> mileage might vary, I haven't personally tried it.
>
> If your machine in question is an intel mac, rEFIt (
> http://refit.sourceforge.net ) is a very nice (and stable) graphical
> bootloader for that, that lets you choose from any available OSes
> (OSX, linux, Windows) and can recognize removable drives containing
> OSes and bootable CD's on the fly.  The reason it works is that it's
> coded for EFI and not BIOS, and Apple's EFI loader contains full
> graphics card and sound support.
>
> On Sat, Nov 15, 2008 at 12:44 PM,  <GoinEasy at eniinternet.com> wrote:
>> Sometimes (like in pure Debian) resolution is set low during grub/boot
>> process so you might want to add vga=791 to the kernel line in
>
> This will only set the vesa mode for your linux distro, not the GRUB bootloader.
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