The Minecraft Grub Theme Trio:

Also check out these other projects:

There is also a Spanish translation!

A Grub Theme in the style of Minecraft!

Run the interactive installation script as root and at your own risk (It's run as sudo after all)

sudo ./install_theme.sh

• This will help you install the theme, the systemd service and enable the console background (see below)
• It also lets you choose a background if you don't want to randomize it

Note: grub vs grub2

• If you have a /boot/grub2 folder instead of a /boot/grub folder , you need to adjust the file paths mentioned here and in the minegrub-update.service file
• Also if you're not sure, run grub-mkconfig -V to check if you have grub version 2 (you should have)

• Clone this repository

git clone https://github.com/Lxtharia/minegrub-theme.git
cd ./minegrub-theme

• (optional) Choose a background

./choose_background.sh  # or just copy a custom image to minegrub/background.png

• If you want to use the update script, copy an arbitrary number of images you would like to use to minegrub/backgrounds/. You can find some options in background_options/ but you can also use your own images.

• If you do not want to use the update script or if you always want to use the same background, you can use ./choose_background.sh or just copy a custom image to minegrub/background.png

• Copy the folder to your boot partition: (for your interest: -ruv = recursive, update, verbose)

sudo cp -ruv ./minegrub /boot/grub/themes/

• Open /etc/default/grub with your text editor and change/uncomment this line:

GRUB_THEME=/boot/grub/themes/minegrub/theme.txt

• Update your live grub config by running

  sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
  

• You're good to go!
• Check out the Configuration section if you want to auto-update the splash text, the background and the packages display after every boot

# flake.nix
{
  inputs.minegrub-theme.url = "github:Lxtharia/minegrub-theme";
  # ...

  outputs = {nixpkgs, ...} @ inputs: {
    nixosConfigurations.HOSTNAME = nixpkgs.lib.nixosSystem {
      modules = [
        ./configuration.nix
        inputs.minegrub-theme.nixosModules.default
      ];
    };
  }
}

# configuration.nix
{ pkgs, ... }: {

  boot.loader.grub = {
    minegrub-theme = {
      enable = true;
      splash = "100% Flakes!";
      background = "background_options/1.8  - [Classic Minecraft].png";
      boot-options-count = 4;
    };
    # ...
  };
}

Make sure to check the following lines are set in /etc/defaults/grub:

• Set GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=menu, so it immediately shows the menu (or else you would need to press ESC first)
• Comment out GRUB_TERMINAL_OUTPUT="console" (by placing a # in front) because this would disable the graphical terminal.
  • You could also add GRUB_TERMINAL_OUTPUT="gfxterm" to overwrite a possible default value.

Secure boot prevents grub from loading the fonts correctly, so the only solution for this I know is to disable secure boot in your BIOS.

Make sure to set the right resolution for your screen in /etc/default/grub like GRUB_GFXMODE=2560x1440,1920x1080,auto. You can see which resolutions your PC supports while pressing c while in the real grub menu and running the videoinfo command.

• If you have more or less than 4 boot options, the buttons will overlap with the bottom bar (the one saying "Options" and "Console")
• To move that bar down and fix this, all you need to do is edit this line in the theme.txt: /boot/grub/themes/minegrub/theme.txt
  • (You can also edit the file in the cloned repository so you don't overwrite it again when you update the theme at some point (via a cp -r))
• The formula and some precalculated values (for 2,3,4,5... boot options) are in the theme.txt, so you should be able to easily change it to the correct value.

The update_theme.py script can make the theme more dynamic: It...

• Chooses a random line from assets/splashes.txt (and then generates and replaces the logo.png which holds the splash text)
  • To add new splash texts simply edit ./minegrub/assets/splashes.txt and add them to the file.
• Update the amount of packages currently installed.
• Randomly chooses a file from backgrounds/ (ignoring hidden files beginning with a dot) as the background image.
  • Put all backgrounds you want to randomly choose from in ./minegrub/backgrounds/. Hidden files (i.e. filenames beginning with a dot) will be ignored. You can also add your own images.
• If you want to get a specific splash and/or background for the next boot, run python update_theme.py [BACKGROUND_FILE [SPLASH]] (e.g. python update_theme.py 'backgrounds/1.15 - [Buzzy Bees].png' 'Splashing!')
  • Empty string parameters will be replaced by a random choice, e.g. python update_theme.py '' 'Splashing!' for a random background and the splash Splashing!.

Dependencies:

• Make sure fastfetch or neofetch is installed
• Make sure Python 3 (or an equivalent) and the Pillow python package are installed
  • Install Pillow either with the python-pillow package from the AUR or with sudo -H pip3 install pillow
  • It's important to use sudo -H, because it needs to be available for the root user

• Just run python /boot/grub/themes/minegrub/update_theme.py (from anywhere) after boot using whatever method works for you

• Just copy the ./minegrub-SysVinit.sh under /etc/init.d as minecraft-grub then run update-rc.d minecraft-grub defaults as root privileges:

sudo cp -v "./minegrub-SysVinit.sh" "/etc/init.d/minecraft-grub"
sudo chmod u+x "/etc/init.d/minecraft-grub" # Just to be sure the permissions are set correctly.
sudo update-rc.d minecraft-grub defaults

• Edit ./minegrub-update.service to use /boot/grub2/ on line 5 if applicable
• Copy ./minegrub-update.service to /etc/systemd/system
• Enable the service: systemctl enable minegrub-update.service
• If it's not updating after rebooting (it won't update on the first reboot because it updates after you boot into your system), check systemctl status minegrub-update.service for any errors (for example if pillow isn't installed in the correct scope)

When in grub, pressing 'c' opens the grub console. A background you can be specified with GRUB_BACKGROUND=<path> in /etc/defaults/grubthough this doesn't work if a theme is set

For this, you need to patch a line in a specific grub file. The installation script will do this for you, or you can use this pretty looking sed command:

# Create a backup of the file first
cp /etc/grub.d/00_header ./00_header.bak
# replace the elif in that line with an fi; if
sed --in-place -E 's/(.*)elif(.*"x\$GRUB_BACKGROUND" != x ] && [ -f "\$GRUB_BACKGROUND" ].*)/\1fi; if\2/' /etc/grub.d/00_header

Now you can set

GRUB_BACKGROUND="/boot/grub/themes/minegrub/dirt.png"

And don't forget to regenerate the grub.cfg :)

• i use arch btw
• please don't sue me mojang, i've made zero dollars on this
• if you work at mojang and use this theme there, send me some proof lmao, that would be much more worth than dollars

• https://github.com/toboot for giving me this wonderful idea!
• the internet for giving me wisdom lmao (Mainly http://wiki.rosalab.ru/en/index.php/Grub2_theme_tutorial)
• The contributors for contributing and giving me some motivation to improve some little things here and there
• Vanilla Tweaks for some of the backgrounds

Font downloaded from https://www.fontspace.com/minecraft-font-f28180 and used for non-commercial use.