Setting up a splash image on Ubuntu 11.10 (oneiric) and Grub 1.99

Choosing a Grub background image

• You can pick an image yourself, or you can use one of the default Grub images:
  

  $ sudo aptitude install grub2-splashimages

• Once installed, the images are located in the /usr/share/images/grub folder

Installing splash Images

• Check your version of Grub (this blogpost was tested with Grub 1.99):
  

  $ grub-install -v

• Open /etc/default/grub with a text editor an add the following line:
  

  GRUB_BACKGROUND=/path/to/your/image 

• Update GRUB to incorporate the image into the menu:

$ sudo update-grub

Changing text colors

• To add menu_color_normal and/or menu_color_highlight values when using a splash image
• Open /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme as root
• Find the following lines:

if [ -z "${2}" ] && [ -z "${3}" ]; then
    echo "  true"
fi

• Change the entry to the following, replacing 'color1' and 'color2' to the desired colors. Leave /black as is!

if [ -z "${2}" ] && [ -z "${3}" ]; then
    # echo "  true"
    echo "    set color_highlight=color1/color2"
    echo "    set color_normal=color1/black"
fi

• Save the file and run update-grub