Customize your splash page - Pistos/diaspora GitHub Wiki
All you have to do is define a view as "app/views/home/_show.html.haml" to define your own splash page for your diaspora install using haml.
A very basic example would be something like:
#content
.center
%h2 Welcome to my pod!
The file config/routes.rb lists the mapping between requests and controllers. The lines concerning the splash screen are:
# Startpage
root :to => 'home#show'
You must delete the index.html in the app/public directory, if any, as rails gives precedence to static content before serving dynamic content.