Linux Desktop Hacks

Jazz Up Your Debian System Boot #8

Chapter 1, Booting Linux

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19

HACK

Here is what you need:

• A graphics editor, such as the Gimp, if you want to create or modify an

image.

• You must install ImageMagick if it is not already installed. Nearly all

Linux distributions provide this on the install CD, and you can use your

preferred package manager to install it.

Suppose you have found or created the image myimage.png. If you have

ImageMagick installed, all you need to do to prepare the image is log in as

root and issue these commands:

# convert myimage.png -colors 14 -resize 640x480 myimage.xpm

The convert command recognizes the extension png and knows what for-

mat it must convert the image from. It also recognizes the extension xpm

and knows what format to convert the image to. The

-colors 14 switch

reduces the number of colors in the image to 14. If the image isn’t already

sized at 640x480, the switch

-resize 640x480 will do that for you.

Next, compress the image (this step is optional, but it saves disk space, which

is useful if you plan to install GRUB on a floppy disk and use the floppy as

your bootloader). Then copy the image to the /boot/grub directory (if you

have to mount the /boot directory after starting up Linux, make sure you have

it mounted before you start copying files into the /boot/grub subdirectory):

# gzip myimage.xpm

# cp myimage.xpm.gz /boot/grub

Now use your favorite editor to add this ...