10.3. Plymouth

Procedure 10.3. Changing the Plymouth Theme

1. Search for the existing Plymouth themes and choose the most preferable one. Run the following command:

   # yum search plymouth-theme

   Or run the plymouth-set-default-theme --list command to view the installed themes.
   You can also install all the themes when installing all the plymouth packages. However, you will install a number of unnecessary packages as well.

   # yum install plymouth\*

2. Set the new theme as default with the plymouth-set-default-theme theme_name command.

   Example 10.3. Set "spinfinity" as the Default Theme

   You have chosen the spinfinity theme, so you run:

   # plymouth-set-default-theme spinfinity

3. Rebuild the initrd daemon after editing otherwise your theme will not show in the boot screen. Do so by running:

   # dracut -f

Procedure 10.4. Creating Your Own Theme from an Existing Theme

1. Copy an entire content of a plymouth/ directory. As a template directory, use, for example, the default theme for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7, /usr/share/plymouth/themes/charge/charge.plymouth, which uses a two-step splash plugin (two-step is a popular boot load feature of a two phased boot process that starts with a progressing animation synced to boot time and finishes with a short, fast one-shot animation):

   [Plymouth Theme]
   Name=Charge
   Description=A theme that features the shadowy hull of my logo charge up and finally burst into full form.
   ModuleName=two-step
   
   [two-step]
   ImageDir=/usr/share/plymouth/themes/charge
   HorizontalAlignment=.5
   VerticalAlignment=.5
   Transition=none
   TransitionDuration=0.0
   BackgroundStartColor=0x202020
   BackgroundEndColor=0x202020
   

2. Save the charge.plymouth file with a new name in the /usr/share/plymouth/themes/newtheme/ directory, in the following format:

   newtheme.plymouth

3. Update the settings in your /usr/share/plymouth/themes/newtheme/newtheme.plymouth file according to your preferences, changing color, alignment, or transition.
4. Set your newtheme as default by running the following command:

   # plymouth-set-default-theme newtheme

5. Rebuild the initrd daemon after changing the theme by running the command below:

   # dracut -f