matter

Matter

Minimalist grub theme originally inspired by material design 2.

Feel free to open issues for any problem or request you have and/or submit pull requests.

Index

• Matter
• Download
• Usage
  • Help
  • Quick Start
  • Uninstall
  • Fonts
  • Colors
  • Images
  • Testing Without Rebooting
• What does Matter do to my system files?
• Gallery: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
• Contributing
• Thanks

Download

Click here to download Matter

It is strongly advised to put the downloaded files in some folder that will not get deleted, as the main script matter.py is needed for future grub updates made by your system. Also if you want to uninstall matter you could do it from there as well.

Dependencies

Matter will inform you of any missing dependencies, but here is a list anyways:

• inkscape (Main dependency): This brings the convert command from imagemagick with best svg to png conversion.
• grub-mkconfig and grub-mkfont: General grub utilities needed. If you don’t have these, please create an issue with more information about your system as I’ve only worked with ones that have these commands.
• PIL (Optional): For image conversions with the --downloadbackground/-dlbg option. Can be installed with either of: pip install Pillow, sudo apt install python3-pil (Ubuntu), pacman -S python-pillow (Arch).
• grub2-theme-preview (Optional): For testing results (--test/-t argument) without rebooting.

Usage

Help

You always can see the command reference with ./matter.py -h, next up are some sections that may be useful, or may not be very well documented in the command’s help.

Quick Start

Note for Fedora users (click to show)

Matter does not yet support The Boot Loader Specification so before executing matter.py you should set GRUB_ENABLE_BLSCFG="false" in /etc/default/grub and then update your grub file with sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

See this issue for updates or if you want to help out with fedora support

Note for users with screen resolution other than 1920x1080 (click to show)

Matter layout might break in other resolutions with the default installation, you might need to tweak the grub.template GRUB_GFXMODE property and theme.txt.template percentages

See this issue for more information.

Following is a Matter installation with default values. Don’t worry, it is very easy to rollback or overwrite this installation later if you want to.

The script that does all the work is matter.py, so let’s start by running it

./matter.py

It outputs almost everything you need to know for later, but for now let’s focus on the list it shows, those are your grub entries. It should look similar to this one:

1. Ubuntu
2. Windows
3. More Options
4. Ubuntu, with Linux 5.3.0-61-generic
5. Ubuntu, with Linux 5.3.0-61-generic (recovery mode)
6. Ubuntu, with Linux 5.3.0-59-generic
7. Ubuntu, with Linux 5.3.0-59-generic (recovery mode)
8. System Setup

Now you should pick some icons from https://materialdesignicons.com for each entry listed (you only need the icon’s name, use the search panel and hover over any icon you like to see its name). For this example I will pick ubuntu for entry 1, microsoft-windows for 2, folder for 3 (as it is a submenu in my particular case), and cog for 8. I don’t care about all the remaining entries so I will just use “_” (underscore) for those.

# Installs matter with icons matching the corresponding entries
./matter.py -i ubuntu microsoft-windows folder _ _ _ _ cog

And thats it! If you reboot now, you should get something like this:

Tip: If you need to tidy up your grub entries hierarchy and names I recommend using grub-customizer (tutorial).

Uninstall

You can completely remove Matter from your system with ./matter.py -u

Fonts

Matter uses .ttf fonts and only one, the default, comes prepackaged. You can specify your own fonts by giving a .ttf file, the font name, and an optional font size like so:

./matter.py -ff ~/fonts/Cinzel/Cinzel-Regular.ttf -fn Cinzel Regular -fs 40

• --fontfile/-ff: The .ttf path
• --fontname/-fn: The name of the font, in this case Cinzel Regular but could be Open Sans Bold (Tip: If you don’t know the font name, you can specify any name, go to the grub, press C to open console, and type lsfonts to list the font names)
• --fontsize/-fs: By default it is 32, recommended values are multiples of 4.
• --font/-f: This argument is not used in this example as it is used to select prepackaged fonts. Note that after giving a ttf file to -ff, matter will save it as a prepackaged font, so it could be referenced later on with this flag. See prepackaged (available) fonts at the end of --help/-h output

Tip: Google Fonts is a good place to get fonts

Colors

You can specify the color of 4 elements: --foreground/-fg, --background/-bg, --iconcolor/-ic and --highlight/-hl (selected text color), there are some Material Design colors prepackaged that you can see at the end of the --help/-h output, you can also specify custom colors. Here is an example of the syntax:

./matter.py -hl FFC107 -fg white -bg 2196f3 -ic pink

Images (unfinished)

You can specify a background image with --image/-im, the supported image formats/extensions are PNG, JPG, JPEG, and TGA. This feature is considered unfinished because it does not yet work as well as it could (see #58)

Here is an example of the syntax:

./matter.py -im ~/Pictures/some-cool-image-that-has-good-contrast-with-my-text-color.png

You can also specify an URL with --downloadbackground/-dlbg to automatically download an image from the internet. The image will be converted to png so it doesn’t need to be a grub-compatible 8-bit jpg. It should be in the jpg or png format though. This feature is also considered unfinished.

./matter.py -dlbg "https://source.unsplash.com/1920x1080/?nature"

Testing Without Rebooting

If you install the pip package grub2-theme-preview you can test combinations of fonts and colors with the --buildonly/-b and --test/-t flags like so:

./matter.py -t -b -i ubuntu microsoft-windows folder _ _ _ _ _ _ cog \
-hl FFC107 -fg white -bg 2196F3 \
-ff ~/fonts/MuseoModerno/static/MuseoModerno-Regular.ttf \
-fn MuseoModerno Regular -fs 40

Note: it will use your system’s grub.cfg, so set your icons beforehand.

What does Matter do to my system files?

Besides the need for the extracted files to be in a persistent location, Matter needs to edit three files:

1. /etc/default/grub: For setting theme and resolution.
2. /boot/grub/grub.cfg: For setting icons.
3. /usr/sbin/grub-mkconfig: For making icons persistent across grub updates.
4. /etc/grub.d/99_matter: For making icons persistent across grub upgrades.

Also it places the theme files in /boot/grub/themes/Matter/, this one is standard to grub themes in general.

Both (1) and (3) are clearly distinguished with special BEGIN/END comments at the end of each file. (2) Adds a --class flag to each entry, but it can be restored as new with update-grub. And (4) is a custom file.

All of these modifications are completely cleaned up by uninstalling

Gallery

Here are some examples with their respective commands that you can copy or get inspired from.

Example 1

Font: Josefin Sans Regular 400

# Light version, invert -fg and -bg for dark one
./matter.py -i ubuntu microsoft-windows folder _ _ _ _ _ _ cog \
-hl ef233c -fg 2b2d42 -bg edf2f4 \
-ff ~/fonts/Josefin_Sans/static/JosefinSans-Regular.ttf \
-fn Josefin Sans Regular -fs 32

Example 2

Font: Comfortaa Medium 500

./matter.py -i ubuntu microsoft-windows folder _ _ _ _ _ _ cog \
-hl white -fg f0f0f0 -bg ff0d7b \
-ff ~/fonts/Comfortaa/static/Comfortaa-Medium.ttf \
-fn Comfortaa Regular -fs 32

Example 3

Font: Lobster Regular 400

./matter.py -i ubuntu microsoft-windows folder _ _ _ _ _ _ cog \
-hl 118ab2 -fg ffd166 -bg 073b4c \
-ff ~/fonts/Lobster/Lobster-Regular.ttf \
-fn Lobster Regular -fs 32

Example 4

Fonts: Bebas Neue Regular 400 and Russo One Regular 400

# Using Bebas Neue font (more compact), the other uses Russo One
./matter.py -i ubuntu microsoft-windows folder _ _ _ _ _ _ cog \
-hl 2c251b -fg 2c251b -bg ffe70b \
-ff ~/fonts/Bebas_Neue/BebasNeue-Regular.ttf \
-fn Bebas Neue Regular -fs 36
# -ff ~/fonts/Russo_One/RussoOne-Regular.ttf \
# -fn Russo One Regular -fs 36

Example 5

Font: Poiret One Regular 400

./matter.py -i ubuntu microsoft-windows folder _ _ _ _ _ _ cog \
-hl black -fg 101010 -bg fce1e0 \
-ff ~/fonts/Poiret_One/PoiretOne-Regular.ttf \
-fn Poiret One Regular -fs 48

Example 6

Font: Josefin Sans Medium 500

./matter.py -i ubuntu microsoft-windows folder _ _ _ _ _ _ cog \
-hl ffe78a -fg fdf7f9 -bg 582335 \
-ff ~/fonts/Josefin_Sans/static/JosefinSans-Medium.ttf \
-fn Josefin Sans Regular -fs 32

Example 7

Font: Josefin Slab Bold 700

./matter.py -i ubuntu microsoft-windows folder _ _ _ _ _ _ cog \
-hl A4E11E -fg white -bg 5b1ee1 \
-ff ~/fonts/Josefin_Slab/JosefinSlab-Bold.ttf \
-fn Josefin Slab Bold -fs 36

Example 8

Font: MuseoModerno Regular 400

./matter.py -i ubuntu microsoft-windows folder _ _ _ _ _ _ cog \
-hl FFC107 -fg white -bg 2196F3 \
-ff ~/fonts/MuseoModerno/static/MuseoModerno-Regular.ttf \
-fn MuseoModerno Regular -fs 32

Example 9

Font: Amatic SC Regular 400

./matter.py -i ubuntu microsoft-windows folder _ _ _ _ _ _ cog \
-bg FFF8E1 -fg 263238 -hl E91E63 \
-ff ~/fonts/Amatic_SC/AmaticSC-Regular.ttf \
-fn Amatic SC Regular -fs 64

Example 10

Font: Cinzel Regular 400

# This is the light version, the dark one uses -bg 1a1d21 -fg c9a45b instead
./matter.py -i ubuntu microsoft-windows folder _ _ _ _ _ _ cog \
-hl c28f2c -bg white -fg d0a85c \
-ff ~/fonts/Cinzel/Cinzel-Regular.ttf \
-fn Cinzel Regular -fs 40
# -hl c28f2c -bg 1a1d21 -fg c9a45b \

Example 11

./matter.py -i ubuntu microsoft-windows folder _ _ _ _ _ _ cog \
-im ~/images/material-background.png

Contributing

Feel free to submit any pull request that improves in any way the project.

Read the wiki https://github.com/mateosss/matter/wiki, that’s where any useful information for developers will reside.

If you think you got a nice result out of Matter and would like to share it, please create an issue with it! I would love to see your results.

Thanks

• Originally inspired by https://github.com/vinceliuice/grub2-themes
• Icons from https://materialdesignicons.com/
• Fonts mainly from https://fonts.google.com