How to install the Ambiance Crunchy Grub2 theme on Linux

If you’ve followed our theme guide for Ambiance Crunchy, you might be interested to know that the creator of that theme also has a Grub2 bootloader theme. It follows the same design style, and it’s a great addition if you’re trying to complete the Ambiance Crunchy look.

Installing the Ambiance Crunchy Grub2 theme is an involved process, and you’ll need to modify how your Linux PC boots. So, before we go over how to modify anything, please back up your Grub settings, and your PC as well!

Download Ambiance Crunchy

The Ambiance Crunchy Grub2 theme is on Gnome-look.org, so sadly, it’s not possible to call the wget command in to download it. Instead, head over to the theme’s page here, and look for the “Files” tab.

Inside of the “Files” tab, you’ll see two download links. Locate the one that is labeled “Crunchy-GRUB2-themes.tar.gz,” and click the blue download icon on the right.

Let the file download to your Linux PC. It’s only about 4.27 MB, so it won’t take long. Once the Ambiance Crunchy Grub2 theme pack is done downloading, launch a terminal window with Ctrl + Alt + T or Ctrl + Shift + T on the keyboard. From there, use the CD command to move into the “Downloads” folder.

cd ~/Downloads

Extract the Ambiance Crunchy TarGZ archive package using the tar command.

tar xvf Crunchy-GRUB2-themes.tar.gz

After the files are done extracting, all of the files will be stored inside of the “themes” folder in the “Downloads” directory. From here, move into the extracted folder with the CD command.

cd themes/

Install the themes

Installing the Ambiance Crunchy themes for Grub is best done with the command-line. This installation method is the way to go due to the developer of the theme explicitly suggesting it be done this way in the instructions.

To start the installation, open up a terminal window with Ctrl + Alt + T or Ctrl + Shift + T. Then, use the CD command to move into the Grub theme folder.

cd /boot/grub/themes/

Inside of the folder, use the sudo -s command to raise your terminal’s permission level from a standard user to root. Then, move the contents of the “theme” folder into the Grub theme folder.

sudo -s

Note: you must modify the commands below so that “username” is replaced with the username on your Linux PC.

mkdir -p /boot/grub/themes/

mv /home/username/Downloads/themes/* /boot/grub/themes/

If the above command doesn’t work, try installing with the one below instead.

mkdir -p /boot/grub2/themes/

mv /home/username/Downloads/themes/* /boot/grub2/themes/

Run the ls command to verify that all of the Ambiance Crunchy theme files are in the Grub theme folder.

ls

Assuming all files are in the correct place, move on to the next section of the guide.

Apply themes

Much like installing Grub themes on Linux, you’ll have to dig into the command-line. To get started, open up a terminal window and open up the default Grub configuration file in the Nano text editor with the command below.

sudo nano -w /etc/default/grub

Inside of the Nano text editor, go to the bottom of the text file using the Down Arrow. Once you’ve made it to the bottom of the file, look for the line that says "GRUB_THEME" and erase the code after the “=” sign. Alternatively, if there is no "GRUB_THEME" line, paste the code below into Nano.

GRUB_THEME"

With the code in the config file, follow the instructions below to enable one of the Ambiance Crunchy themes in the theme pack.

Crunchy-1024

Want to use the Crunchy-1024 theme on your Linux PC? Add the line below to the Grub configuration file in Nano.

GRUB_THEME="/boot/grub/themes/Crunchy-1024/theme-potatoes.txt"

Fedora, OpenSUSE:

GRUB_THEME="/boot/grub/themes/Crunchy-1024/theme-potatoes.txt"

Crunchy-distro-ish

Decide you want to check out the Crunchy-distro-ish theme on Linux? Add the following code to the Grub configuration file open inside of Nano.

GRUB_THEME="/boot/grub/themes/Crunchy-distro-ish/theme-mint.txt"

Fedora, OpenSUSE:

GRUB_THEME="/boot/grub2/themes/Crunchy-distro-ish/theme-mint.txt"

Crunchy-retro

Feel like trying out Crunchy-retro from the Ambiance Crunchy Grub2 theme pack? Paste the code below into the Nano text editor.

GRUB_THEME="/boot/grub/themes/Crunchy-retro/theme-Oregon.txt"

Fedora, OpenSUSE:

GRUB_THEME="/boot/grub2/themes/Crunchy-retro/theme-Oregon.txt"

Crunchy-simple

Need something simple to use inside of Grub? Try out Crunchy-simple with the Grub2 theme by pasting the code below into Nano.

GRUB_THEME="/boot/grub/themes/Crunchy-simple/theme-bridge.txt"

Fedora, OpenSUSE:

GRUB_THEME="/boot/grub2/themes/Crunchy-simple/theme-bridge.txt"

Crunchy-ubuntu

Are you an Ubuntu user and want to take the Crunchy-ubuntu Grub2 theme for a spin? Enable it with the code below in Nano.

GRUB_THEME="/boot/grub/themes/Crunchy-ubuntu/theme-orange.txt"

Fedora, OpenSUSE:

GRUB_THEME="/boot/grub2/themes/Crunchy-ubuntu/theme-orange.txt"

Crunchy-zen

Feeling Zen? Try out the Crunchy-zen Grub2 theme on your Linux PC by pasting the following code into Nano.

GRUB_THEME="/boot/grub/themes/Crunchy-zen/theme-stones.txt"

Fedora, OpenSUSE:

GRUB_THEME="/boot/grub2/themes/Crunchy-zen/theme-stones.txt"

Once you’re done editing, save with Ctrl + O, exit with Ctrl + X, and update Grub with the commands below.

Ubuntu/Debian

sudo update-grub

Fedora/OpenSUSE

sudo grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg

Arch Linux

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

Reboot your PC after updating Grub. Upon reboot, you should see the Ambiance Crunchy Grub2 theme you applied!