Show Mint logo with OEM logo at boot

[emmegamma]

Well, not sure how many people like this, but I have a new laptop and I quite like the fact that the manufacturer's logo is shown during OS load - with a spinner below it.

Ubuntu lately does this by default, adding its logo, so it's actually easy to do the same with Mint's:

[EDIT: all the procedure has been updated to make the changes permanent]

1. Copy plymouth theme bgrt, which is the one doing the job, to a bgrt-mint theme, so the changes won´t be overwritten by updates (we'll also change its name from BGRT to BGRT-Mint in the configuration file using sed)

   sudo cp -r /usr/share/plymouth/themes/bgrt/ /usr/share/plymouth/themes/bgrt-mint
   cd /usr/share/plymouth/themes/bgrt-mint  
   sudo mv bgrt.plymouth bgrt-mint.plymouth
   sudo sed s/BGRT/BGRT-Mint/ bgrt-mint.plymouth
   

2. Now you have to modify the theme to show Mint's logo. There's two options:

   (i) show the default Mint 22.1 animation (the green logo with a light shade spinning) under the OEM logo (plus someone in the reflex if you don't know how to make screenshots in plytmouth :) ):
   

   To do this, you have to modify the bgrt-mint configuration file:
   sudo nano /usr/share/plymouth/themes/bgrt-mint/bgrt-mint.plymouth
   , find the line ImageDir= and, at the end of it, change spinner to mint-logo.

   In the end it should read ImageDir=/usr/share/plymouth/themes//mint-logo

   (You can also just use sed, though it will also change some other non-important lines
   sudo sed s/spinner/mint-logo/ /usr/share/plymouth/themes/bgrt-mint/bgrt-mint.plymouth )

   (ii) the other option is to use Ubuntu's spinning circle and place Mint's logo (or any other of your choice) beneath it:
   

   For this, you'll also need a copy of the spinner theme as a new spinner-mint theme
   sudo cp -r /usr/share/plymouth/themes/spinner /usr/share/plymouth/themes/spinner-mint
   and change spinner to spinner-mint in the bgrt-mint configuration file:
   sudo sed s/spinner/spinner-mint/ /usr/share/plymouth/themes/bgrt-mint/bgrt-mint.plymouth

   You then need to place a new watermark.png instead of Ubuntu's in the spinner-mint folder. I've used Mint's logo (one frame from the mint-logo theme of above), but you can choose pretty much anything:
   sudo cp /usr/share/plymouth/themes/mint-logo/animation-0001.png /usr/share/plymouth/themes/spinner-mint/watermark.png

3. Whatever your choice, you must install the new bgrt-mint plymouth theme as an alternative
   sudo update-alternatives --install /usr/share/plymouth/themes/default.plymouth default.plymouth /usr/share/plymouth/themes/bgrt-mint/bgrt-mint.plymouth 80

   and make it the default by giving
   sudo update-alternatives --config default.plymouth
   and selecting the number for bgrt-mint

4. Finally update the initramfs
   sudo update-initramfs -u

That's all :) if you reboot you'll see it!

Of course you can change from one to the other option at any time by just changing the ImageDir line in bgrt-mint.plymouth

[gaetan-1960]

I am working in Cinnamon on Manjaro, not on Mint. Had the spinner logo working as you suggest and changed it to something else; Plymouth can be manipulated easily. Don't know if the Linux Mint team would op for a standard add of the bgrt theme; could be nice ... Depends on them what they want...

[emmegamma]

Yeah, I don't know, though I suspect they actually chose a different way, maybe to differentiate from Ubuntu.
Anyway, glad it helped!

[TrefixKeks]

i just copied everything and it didn't worked. Do you know what the problem could be?
I see the normal mint logo as always. is it maybe because of grub?

[TrefixKeks]

update: i can only see it for a few seconds when i restart or shut down

[emmegamma]

Hum, I see it on shutdown briefly only at the very first shutdown, before the system is rebooted with the new boot files.
The fact that the old mint logo is working sounds like step 4 didn't succeed - update-alternatives in step 3 sets the new theme configuration, step 4 is to make the new boot files to use it
Maybe check and repeat both 3 and 4?

I'm trying to make it a .deb but it may take some time still