grub-theme-udt

A GRUB 2 theme for the unified-desktop-theme (udt) family. The background is a snapshot of the current wallpaper; a translucent panel on the left carries the menu, in the active udt scheme's colours.

How it is wired

theme.txt.in is a template. udt's udt-palette renders it to theme.txt with the scheme's colours, then udt's install.sh runs ./build, which assembles the complete theme in dist/udt/: theme.txt, the PNG slices in the same colours, the .pf2 fonts and background.jpg, a GRUB-readable copy of ~/.cache/udt/wpaper. Both outputs are gitignored.

The panel title is the machine's pretty name, PRETTY_HOSTNAME in /etc/machine-info, or the OS name from /etc/os-release when that is not set. udt's udt-machine-name sets it, keeping any other keys in the file:

sudo udt-machine-name "My Machine"

The accent is the scheme's fixed accent role, not the wallpaper-tracking one: nothing at boot can read that.

Install

GRUB reads /boot before anything else is mounted, so the theme is copied, not linked. In a root shell:

rm -rf /boot/grub/themes/udt && cp -r <this repo>/dist/udt /boot/grub/themes/

Once, set this in /etc/default/grub:

GRUB_THEME="/boot/grub/themes/udt/theme.txt"

then regenerate the config:

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

udt's install.sh prints these commands after a successful build; it never runs them.

After a scheme or wallpaper change

Rerun udt's install.sh, then the cp line above. grub-mkconfig is only needed when GRUB_THEME changes. The theme on /boot stays as it was until root copies the new one.

Requirements

GRUB 2.14 or later (for desktop-image-scale-method), Python 3, grub-mkfont, fc-match, ImageMagick's magick, and the fonts Noto Sans (Regular, Bold) and Inconsolata Nerd Font Mono.

Test

./build --selftest
./preview            # headless, screenshot to dist/preview.png
./preview --live     # QEMU window: move through the menu, 'c' for the console
./preview 1920x1080  # another mode

preview boots dist/udt in real GRUB (x86_64-efi) under QEMU and OVMF, with stand-in menu entries, so the theme can be checked before root installs it. It needs qemu-system-x86_64, OVMF in /usr/share/OVMF and grub-mkimage.

License

GPLv2 only. See LICENSE.

Development Approach

This project is developed using AI-assisted tools. Code is generated with the help of AI based on human-provided specifications, design decisions, and iterative feedback.

All contributions are reviewed, tested, and curated by the maintainer before being included in the codebase. AI is used as a productivity and exploration tool, while human oversight remains central to all decisions.

The goal is to combine the flexibility of AI-assisted development with standard open-source practices such as transparency, review, and accountability.