Getting LILO to not look like ass.

Luke727 · 05-27-2004, 10:42 PM

I've completed an install from the Woody ISOs (not enough bandwidth to install from net), and am dual-booting with Windows 98 (this is a rather old computer). I put LILO in the MBR, and everything works fine. However, is there some way to make LILO look better? I don't mean a fancy GUI or anything, I mean at the very least change the color or layout. The red on black is fucking ugly, and the layout on the screen looks rather odd.

darthtux · 05-27-2004, 11:20 PM

FIRST - backup /etc/lilo.conf

I haven't found an English site yet.

http://people.via.ecp.fr/~alexis/for....html#AEN12596

Download the file at the beginning of the section and install it. Then edit /etc/lilo.conf

On the page above, this is from the woody section:

your /etc/lilo.conf will already have the line
install=/boot/boot-menu.b
replace with the following lines

install=/boot/boot-bmp.b
bitmap=/boot/debian-bootscreen-woody.rle.bmp
bmp-colors=1,,0,2,,0
bmp-table=120p,173p,1,15,17
bmp-timer=254p,432p,1,0,0

rerun
/sbin/lilo

beaucoup · 05-27-2004, 11:34 PM

Actually, you CAN do a "fancy GUI" with lilo by providing a .bmp file for it, but if all you want is to change the colors, I think that's doable too. Add a line starting with "menu-scheme=" to /etc/lilo.conf

Stolen from the lilo man page:

Quote:

menu-scheme=<color-scheme>
The default color scheme of the boot menu may be overridden on VGA displays using this option. (The
color scheme of MDA displays is fixed.) The general color-scheme string is of the form:

<text>:<highlight>:<border>:<title>

where each entry is two characters which specify a foreground color and a background color. Only
the first entry is required. The default highlight is the reverse of the text color; and the
default border and title colors are the text color. Colors are specified using the characters
kbgcrmyw, for blacK, Blue, Green, Cyan, Red, Magenta, Yellow, and White: upper case for intense (fg
only), lower case for dim. Legal color-scheme strings would be

menu-scheme=Wm intense white on magenta
menu-scheme=wr:bw:wr:Yr the LILO default
menu-scheme=Yk:kw bright yellow on black

If boot-menu.b is not installed as the boot loader, then this line has no effect.

Luke727 · 05-28-2004, 12:12 AM

Thanks to both of you. I'll try changing the color scheme first (D'OH, I knew I should have bothered to read the man page). If it still looks like crap then I'll give the BMP thing a try.