Lately I've decided to use Edubuntu... But there have been some pain points, none more-so than the boot splash screen. You know, that white Edubuntu spash screen that modern laptops on full brightness just about shatter your retina as it boots? If all you know is the soothing Ubuntu purple screen (haha) then consider yourself fortunate.
So what can you do... surely you can just change it? Yeah, go to software center and search on boot and/or splash and/or eye's burning and ... nothing. But surely you know the boot process thing is called "Plymouth"? Oh yeah, okay try that... nothing!
No, you have to search on plymouth-theme. That will trick Software Center's advanced heuristic irritation algorithm to show you what you want!? (Why on earth would a search on plymouth not produce results that plymouth-theme produces?)
So, there it finally is - the Solar Theme I love. It's darker blues will soothe my eyes and not excite the senses (like that rude purple). Install it... bing, bang, boom, done!!! Ah, no, that's not the way it's done. It still comes up all whitey-brighty.
Well, duh, I didn't tell it to use Solar as default. How would it know!!! (Stupid me). What you obviously have to do is go to a terminal and run:
sudo update-alternatives --config default.plymouth
And select the number that matches the Solar Theme. Enjoy.
Please someone post a comment and tell me what I missed - there must be an easier way!!!
Showing posts with label edubuntu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label edubuntu. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Wubi must overcome some hurdles for Edubuntu
From 12.04 you will be able to install Edubuntu with Wubi. There are a few hurdles to overcome. The first is that Edubuntu requires a DVD image to install, and Wubi has built-in checks to prevent this - the ISO must be < 900,000,000 bytes (or 858MB) .
These same checks are what prevents users from installing a normal desktop CD image from a USB stick. These days USB sticks are generally large - in fact the Ubuntu download site states that a minimum of 2GB free space is required when creating a bootable USB.
But the way Wubi works is to copy the entire USB partition as the 'ISO' during the installation, and following that it performs the 900,000,000 byte check, and fails.
There is another danger because the USB partition is copied without any space checks. So imagine if you have 10GB space left on your hard drive, Wubi proceeds to install, but then tries to copy a 16GB USB stick partition onto that same hard drive. (That can only end badly). And even if you have enough space - it's going to fail the size check anyway.
Why is this an issue? More and more users are using USB sticks as they are cheaper, readily available and much less hassle than CDs (bad burn anyone?). But even more importantly, there have been reports that the Ubuntu desktop CD ISO will be increased 750MB size from release 12.04 on. This rules out the use of standards CDs. You can still burn a CD ISO onto a DVD - that works because the ISO does not expand to the DVD size in the same way as with a USB partition.
Relevant bugs:
Edubuntu https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/913354
USB https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/461566
These same checks are what prevents users from installing a normal desktop CD image from a USB stick. These days USB sticks are generally large - in fact the Ubuntu download site states that a minimum of 2GB free space is required when creating a bootable USB.
But the way Wubi works is to copy the entire USB partition as the 'ISO' during the installation, and following that it performs the 900,000,000 byte check, and fails.
There is another danger because the USB partition is copied without any space checks. So imagine if you have 10GB space left on your hard drive, Wubi proceeds to install, but then tries to copy a 16GB USB stick partition onto that same hard drive. (That can only end badly). And even if you have enough space - it's going to fail the size check anyway.
Why is this an issue? More and more users are using USB sticks as they are cheaper, readily available and much less hassle than CDs (bad burn anyone?). But even more importantly, there have been reports that the Ubuntu desktop CD ISO will be increased 750MB size from release 12.04 on. This rules out the use of standards CDs. You can still burn a CD ISO onto a DVD - that works because the ISO does not expand to the DVD size in the same way as with a USB partition.
Relevant bugs:
Edubuntu https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/913354
USB https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/461566
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