Q4OS Forum

THN

Member

Registered: 2019-09-05

Posts: 16

grub theming

Hi forum

I'm wondering if anyone of you guys has experience with grub theming. I'm using grub customizer and can't get my theme to load/display.

What I've done so far
1) I went to https://github.com/Jacksaur/Gorgeous-GRUB and found a nice looking debian theme as part of the "dark matter" theme set
2) I went to dark matter's site https://www.pling.com/p/1603282/ and downloaded the debian-1080p.zip file
3) I unpacked the archive to a folder under /home/myself and ran the installer command ("sudo python3 darkmatter-theme.py -i")
So far, all went well (no error messages)

I rebooted but didn't notice any change. So I thought this must be because of my use of grub-customizer. So I launched it and selected/activated the darkmatter theme, which has become visible/available in one of the tabs, and saved the updated configuration.

Again, after reboot there was still no change.

So I went through the chain of boot files, to see where there might be the error.

First, from the EFI Bios, I boot the file /boot/efi/EFI/q4os/grub.cfg which only contains
search.fs_uuid 7e23d27b-4781-4b46-b798-53d7c0ab9fb9 root hd0,gpt9
set prefix=($root)'/boot/grub'
configfile $prefix/grub.cfg

So from here the boot branches to the "real" grub.cfg file in /boot/grub/ which contains the following theme instructions:
### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###
set menu_color_normal=cyan/blue
set menu_color_highlight=white/blue
### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###

When I check /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme, I find that this is the original Q4OS theme file stemming from the Q4OS installation (dated February 2023)

So "somewhere" in the chain of configuration files, the "link" to darkmatter's debian theme (residing in my home dir) is missing and wasn't correctly installed.

What am I doing wrong and how can I activate my theme?

Best,

T.

Last edited by THN (2024-08-28 18:14)

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 4,450

Website

Re: grub theming

We will take a look and post back a bit later.

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 4,450

Website

Re: grub theming

Please post some more info about your system. Desktop environment, Desktop profile you have applied, iso file you have installed from and output of terminal commad:
$ get-q4os-version

THN

Member

Registered: 2019-09-05

Posts: 16

Re: grub theming

$ get-q4os-version
5.6.1-n1

KDE Plasma Desktop, installed from ISO q4os-5.2-x64.r1.iso

Kernel 6.1.0-25-amd64 #1 SMP PREEMPT_DYNAMIC Debian 6.1.106-3 (2024-08-26) x86_64 GNU/Linux

T.

q4osteam

Q4OS Team

Registered: 2015-12-06

Posts: 4,450

Website

Re: grub theming

We can confirm this issue, as we have made testing on Q4OS 5 and plain Debian 12.
- testing on efi based virtual machine
- downloaded the debian-1080p.zip file
- extracted the zip file
- installed with command:
$ sudo python3 darkmatter-theme.py -i
-reboot
The Grub theme didn't apply neither for Q4OS nor Debian. So we conclude Debian upstream issue. As this isn't native Q4OS issue, we suggest you to search for a fix for Debian and apply it on Q4OS. We will try to investigate further however it could take some time.

THN

Member

Registered: 2019-09-05

Posts: 16

Re: grub theming

Since I don't get any answer from the theme author
(https://github.com/VandalByte/darkmatte … /issues/43)
I would appreciate if you could have a look (again)

Thanks,

T.

tlmiller76

Member

From: AZ, USA

Registered: 2016-11-29

Posts: 454

Re: grub theming

IMO, skip the installer.
In the extracted files, copy the darkmatter folder to the /boot/grub/themes/ folder (create if it doesn't exist)
Edit /etc/default/grub, adding the line
GRUB_THEME='/boot/grub/themes/darkmatter/theme.txt'
Then do a grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg, you should see a blurb about "found grub theme".

next time you reboot, you'll be using the darmkatter theme.

Last edited by tlmiller76 (Yesterday 17:17)

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Q4OS Trinity machine - Crelander E160.  Intel Celeron N5105, 16GB LPDDR4, 512GB m.2 SATA SSD, Intel UHD graphics, Intel 7265 Wifi 5 + BT 4.x

THN

Member

Registered: 2019-09-05

Posts: 16

Re: grub theming

No, it doesn't appear to be that simple.

First, the installer has already copied the full set of files to /boot/grub/themes/darkmatter/
Second, the entry
GRUB_THEME="/boot/grub/themes/darkmatter/theme.txt"
is well present in the file /etc/default/grub

But still, the command
grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
doesn't show "found grub theme":

$ sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg
Generating grub configuration file ...
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-6.1.0-25-amd64
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-6.1.0-25-amd64
Warning: os-prober will be executed to detect other bootable partitions.
Its output will be used to detect bootable binaries on them and create new boot entries.
Found Windows Boot Manager on /dev/nvme0n1p2@/EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
Found openSUSE Leap 15.6 on /dev/nvme0n1p5
Found LMDE 6 (faye) on /dev/nvme0n1p6
Found MX 23.4 Libretto (23.4) on /dev/nvme0n1p7
Found Linux Mint 21.3 Virginia (21.3) on /dev/nvme0n1p8
Adding boot menu entry for UEFI Firmware Settings ...
Adding boot menu entry for UEFI Firmware Settings ...
done

and the theme also doesn't show up upon reboot from EFI BIOS.

T.

Last edited by THN (Yesterday 22:15)