Gorgeous-GRUB: collection of decent community-made GRUB themes

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Aesthetic themes and nostalgia

  • Many find the themes fun and creatively impressive, evoking movies like Hackers, retro SGI/PC boot sequences, and old Linux “wobbly windows”/eye-candy eras.
  • Some want even more elaborate experiences (boot chimes, micro “recovery” distros, cinematic boot screens) mainly for vibe rather than utility.
  • Others say theming the bootloader is the last thing they’d invest time in; it’s “icing on the cake” at best.

“I don’t want to see GRUB at all” vs. visible menus

  • A sizeable group wants GRUB completely hidden and instant-booting unless a key is held. They note bootloader timeout is now one of the slowest parts of modern boot.
  • Tips: set GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden and GRUB_TIMEOUT=0, then hold Shift to show the menu (though some warn USB keyboards may not be ready in time).
  • Counterpoint: a few see 5 seconds as negligible compared to the hassle when you actually need to interrupt boot and can’t; they prefer always-visible menus.

Recovery, snapshots, and advanced setups

  • Several mention recovery environments: dual-booting a “backup” Linux in a recovery partition, micro distros, and kexec-based bootloaders for a “real” Linux pre-boot environment.
  • Snapshot/rollback ecosystems get praise: NixOS generations in GRUB, OpenSUSE on Btrfs with multiple kernels, ZFS-based setups with tools like ZFSBootMenu, and CI-driven deployment with automatic rollback.

Technical pain points

  • Resolution and monitor handling: themes often assume fixed resolutions; GRUB typically uses firmware-set resolution. People complain about ugly scaling, especially on changing external monitors and docks.
  • Encryption: lack of LUKS2, slow decryption due to outdated crypto library and missing hardware acceleration, and complexity around full-disk encryption plus snapshots are recurring gripes.
  • Misc issues: GRUB sometimes mishandles Windows boots, can corrupt partition tables in exotic setups, and feels fragile when it breaks.

Alternatives and GRUB’s role

  • Strong criticism: GRUB is seen as bloated, inscrutable, outdated as an interactive shell, and “unnecessary” now that kernels can be booted directly via EFI stubs or lighter loaders (systemd-boot, rEFInd, Syslinux, Haiku’s BootManager, LILO variants).
  • Strong defense: others say it “just works”, especially for multi-OS, encrypted, or complex filesystem setups; its ubiquity and capability across BIOS/UEFI and odd hardware are cited as why it remains dominant.

Dual boot usability and docs

  • Themes are seen as especially helpful for nervous beginners with dual boots who want a friendly, clear menu.
  • There’s frustration over poor GRUB documentation for typical user flows (e.g., adding Linux alongside preinstalled Windows) and os-prober being disabled by default, making dual boot setup harder for newcomers.