Use OEM logo in plymouth at boot with Linux Mint

[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!