I know this is a pety question but i'm working on making linux look pretty..... ive checked in the options for manriva on how to change the image on the very first boot up screen..... the one with the penguin with the stars in his/her eyes...... ive only managed to turn it off but is there a file somewhere where i can point to another image file? or is this part of the system?

In the Control Center, there is somewhere an option to change it, can't remember where though.

There is a package called 'bootsplash-themes', if you have set up your urpmisources, you'll easily be able to find it (i think in contrib). After you install that, go to MCC->Boot->choose graphical boot theme.... This gives you more options. You can also decide to make your own themes .

If you want to change the KDE/GNOME bootsplash, visit kde-look or gnome-look

Cool, thats helped a lot... i've got a nice little penguin sitting on a balck screen greeting me......

there's still the LILO spash screen and the stary "limited edition 2005" screen too..... arghhhhh so many splashes! i'm gonna hunt for programs which may change this.... or can i do a bit of fiddling in a file somewhere to change any of these?

actually those themes should be giving lilo themes too(only that makes a complete theme). But you can change the lilo startup screen by modifying a file called /boot/message(or whatever you have against "message=" in /etc/lilo.conf).
I'll try to find some ready made themes for you.

Here it is http://yochenhsieh.myweb.hinet.net/LE2005A.tar.gz
now this is a complete theme.
The readme has all the info

Cool abattoir, ive read the readme and it tells you all the locations which the files go into so i can make my own theme. sweet! i'll play around with it when i get home and let you all know if it works! <fingers crossed>

Sorry for the late reply, yup, everythigns worked, new screens are really cool and am gonna try adding my own. Only problem is i dont know how to uninstall and reinstall lilo without losing settings..... otherswise the link Abatoir gave works!

I dont think you need to uninstall/reinstall lilo. After you append to the(or make a new) initrd, open /etc/lilo.conf, check if it points to the right initrd. If you made a lilo message, make sure it points to it too. After this run 'lilo'. If all the OSs show up(w/o any error messages), everything is fine.

This is what the readme file in the zipped file asked me to do....

1. Copy lilo/message-graphic to /boot/
2. Reinstall lilo.

No mention of conf. Whats an initrd file? COuld you please explain? I would like to learn.....

Sorry, was in a bit of a hurry so couldnt elaborate.

Since you are just replacing the Mandriva files and not creating new ones, i think it'd be okay to follow the instructions. Except ignore step 2 and after step 5, as root run the command 'lilo' or '/sbin/lilo'.

As far as i understand, this is the boot process. LILO is called by the BIOS. LILO then displays the OS list. The background image(and other details including position of the textbox etc.) for lilo is chosen by the file pointed by the "message=" line(If you comment this out, you'll get a text message).

When you choose a Linux OS, lilo calls the kernel and a compressed file called initrd(initialize ram disk) is uncompressed and mounted as a filesystem in the RAM(by the kernel). This is an intermediate process before loading your acutal filesystem.

If you were to add more themes (so that you have more options), this it what you generally would have to do.

1. You can either replace the existing /boot/message and /boot/message-graphic file by new ones; or you can just copy new files into the /boot directory. You should just make sure that the line "message=" in /etc/lilo.conf points to the right file.
Either way, you have to 'run' lilo( as root "lilo" or "/sbin/lilo"). This is where lilo checks the message(amongst other things, like path of root filesystems etc.). If everything goes well, you'll get a list of "Added {Operating System}"'.

2. We are concerned with initrd because it is responsible for the Graphical screen w/ the progress bar you get after booting.
Since you are replacing the Mandriva image, the path for the image and the config file *.cfg are intact, so you dont have to mess w/ initrd. However, if you want to add a new theme(keeping the exising theme), you have to append the path of the image and config file to the initrd.

I hope I have explained it properly. As far as I know, this is what happens.

Cheers

Thanks for taking the time to explain it abattoir. I think i get it. Lilo works fine after rerunning it

No Problem .

KDE-look also has a bootloader section, you can check that out for additional resources.

There is also 'anililo' which is a patched version of lilo which supports animated bootscreens.