# HELP: MX Boot options

## Introduction

This MX Tool is designed to make common user start-up choices faster and easier. It is not intended to cover advanced boot options, for which the user should consult this Wiki page instead.

## Options

Menu timeout: how long the GRUB screen remains visible until the boot process begins. If you put a zero in, the GRUB screen will simply not show at all (technically, it sets GRUB_TIMEOUT=0 in /etc/default/grub). If you put in a -1, no timeout event will even occur.

Boot To: Select the grub boot menu entry that will be used as default on next boot.

Enable saving last boot choice: Instruct grub to use whatever you last selected from the grub boot menu as the new default

Use flat menus: Instructs grub to create a grub menu with the subcategories merged into the top level grub menu.

Kernel Parameters: Shows the parameters being passed to the kernel during the boot process.

Manage UEFI Boot Options: Edit, modify, add or delete the boot priority list.

## Background

Using the choices here, the user can select a background wallpaper for the standard GRUB display (technically, sets GRUB_BACKGROUND=/path/filename).

- PNG files will be more satisfactory than JPG because it allows more colors,
- Image should be non-indexed, RGB (GIMP can do this).
- A size of 800×450 tends to work well.

Complete GRUB themes are also available from the pull-down menu that offer a more polished look.

## Splash

It is possible to see a graphical display while the system boots making use of the application Plymouth, originally developed by Fedora.

Enable: Enable Plymouth. Plymouth will be installed if necessary.

Theme: Select a theme for Plymouth to use.

Preview: Display the Plymouth theme selected. The splash will be displayed for approximately 5 seconds then return to the mx-boot-options gui. The preview button may not work upon first install of Plymouth but should work OK after a reboot of the machine.

## Messages

Very Detailed: Removes the “quiet” boot parameter, showing many normally hidden scrolling boot text messages.

Detailed: The normal default boot message setup, with “quiet” enabled in the boot parameters. This basically shows warnings and init messages, but not kernel messages.

Limited: Hides all but error boot messages.

Display Log: Displays the boot log appropriate for the current boot conditions.

MX Boot Options currently only works on the grub configuration installed with MX Linux. It is possible, from live-Media, to use MX Boot Options to configure the grub configurations on other “installed” partitions.

## Tips and tricks

- MX Boot Options currently only works on the grub configuration installed with MX Linux. It is possible, from live-Media, to use MX Boot Options to configure the grub configurations on other “installed” partitions.
- If you use a splash, you can press Esc at any point to return to the boot messages.
- For advanced boot options that involve cheat codes (kernel parameters), consult this WIki page.

## Links

- Freedesktop page
- Plymouth theming guide
- Gnome-look.org

###### v. 20180809