Editing GRUB

[barnabas02]

I have installed Kubuntu 12.04 next to Windows 7 for my friend, and he would like to remove the fail-safe options, to only Kubuntu, and Windows appear on the list. Is it possible to delete/hide these entries. From GRUB? And if yes, how can I do it?

[thomasg62]

Hi - wrestled with this myself for a while. I installed 'grub-customizer' (didnt appear in Muon though - had to get it through installing Synaptic). This programme does have a GUI but for reasons too complicated for me it doesn't launch when you click on it. Instead you type 'sudo grub-customizer' into your terminal and hey presto!. This will do what you are looking for and more

[barnabas02]

Thanks a lot! I will try it. But what is Synaptic?

[thomasg62]

Ah! its a more traditional software package installer than Muon. Type 'sudo apt-get install synaptic' then your password at the prompt and it should install this for you. I dont pretend to fully understand how this all links to repositories - I just know it has more stuff than you get in the installed one - including 'grub-customizer'. I eventually got it all to work without the terminal at all, but forget most of it. Good luck

...any moment now a wave of purists will descend upon this little communication and try to 'terminal us to death' with mountains of sudo-gksu-kdesu...babble, and a million reasons not to do what I just suggested. Ignore them. It works.

[thomasg62]

...actually, maybe just using that 'apt' thing will work for grub-customizer. Try 'sudo apt-get install grub-customizer'. Should work.

...synaptic is still worth having though.

[SteveRiley]

I have installed Kubuntu 12.04 next to Windows 7 for my friend, and he would like to remove the fail-safe options, to only Kubuntu, and Windows appear on the list. Is it possible to delete/hide these entries. From GRUB? And if yes, how can I do it?

Please...don't do this. Those options appear in the list for a reason. Your friend is simply creating extra work for himself -- or you -- if you should ever need to boot into failsafe mode and you've hidden or removed the options from the bootloader.

[barnabas02]

Wow, thank you! This helped a lot. I hid the entries, and made a new one to unhide them.
Now, GRUB looks pretty compact, and I can still use the fail-safe options.
Thanks you both again.

[perspectoff]

Not to hijack the thread, but it seemed the other problem was solved, so...

In the new Grub 1.99 I set the option in /etc/default/grub to

GRUB_DEFAULT="Marvin the Paranoid Android Linux OS"

so that it would load my new futuristic Linux OS (which I use in my new experimental cyborg) automatically (after a sudo update-grub and reboot, of course).

Unfortunately, that works, but then I can't enter the Grub menu manually to select any other option. The usual "c" or "p" or any other keystroke doesn't do anything and it just loads the Paranoid Android OS automatically every time.

I realise I should discuss this in the Grub2 forums (is there such a thing?) unless someone else has come across a solution to this problem...

Of course, I quickly put in my usual solution, which is not to rely on Grub2 as the primary booloader but to install Grub Legacy in its own /boot partition and merely use it to chainload Grub2 (a far more reliable and failsafe arrangement for me). Grub Legacy doesn't have this problem...

------------------------------------------------
Marvin the Robot: I've been talking to the main computer.
Arthur Dent: And?
Marvin the Robot: It hates me.
------------------------------------------------

[james147]

Not to hijack the thread, but it seemed the other problem was solved, so...

In the new Grub 1.99 I set the option in /etc/default/grub to

GRUB_DEFAULT="Marvin the Paranoid Android Linux OS"

so that it would load my new futuristic Linux OS (which I use in my new experimental cyborg) automatically (after a sudo update-grub and reboot, of course).

Unfortunately, that works, but then I can't enter the Grub menu manually to select any other option. The usual "c" or "p" or any other keystroke doesn't do anything and it just loads the Paranoid Android OS automatically every time.

I realise I should discuss this in the Grub2 forums (is there such a thing?) unless someone else has come across a solution to this problem...

Of course, I quickly put in my usual solution, which is not to rely on Grub2 as the primary booloader but to install Grub Legacy in its own /boot partition and merely use it to chainload Grub2 (a far more reliable and failsafe arrangement for me). Grub Legacy doesn't have this problem...

------------------------------------------------
Marvin the Robot: I've been talking to the main computer.
Arthur Dent: And?
Marvin the Robot: It hates me.
------------------------------------------------

You should really start a new thread if you want to ask a question, but I think GRUB_DEFAULT takes an integer value of the position of the entry you want to boot starting at 0 for the first item (so 2 would boot the 3rd entry). Or have they change that to start 1 one now... I cannot quite remember.

[perspectoff]

You should really start a new thread if you want to ask a question, but I think GRUB_DEFAULT takes an integer value of the position of the entry you want to boot starting at 0 for the first item (so 2 would boot the 3rd entry). Or have they change that to start 1 one now... I cannot quite remember.

No, you're wrong. See

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/man...-configuration

[james147]

No, you're wrong. See

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/man...-configuration

Ok, it can take a numerical value.

[jlittle]

I realise I should discuss this in the Grub2 forums (is there such a thing?)...

The help-grub mailing list is active and very helpful, for grub 2 queries:

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