Grub

[judgebob]

Hi All,

How to edit Grub menu ?

TIA.

JB.

[integr8e]

Re: Grub

2 things come to mind right off the bat:
1) check out Qqmike's HowTo: GRUB Methods
2) there is a graphical manager in the repos called startupmanager that might help you some

[judgebob]

Re: Grub

2 things come to mind right off the bat:
1) check out Qqmike's HowTo: GRUB Methods

I'll check it.

2) there is a graphical manager in the repos called startupmanager that might help you some

I've already installed but it doesn't allow to modify the menu.


Thanks.

JB.

[Snowhog]

Re: Grub

The Grub boot menu (menu.lst) is located in /boot/grub
It must be edited by root. You can navigate to the file in Konqueror, right-click the file and select Actions | Edit as Root.

[judgebob]

Re: Grub

The Grub boot menu (menu.lst) is located in /boot/grub
It must be edited by root. You can navigate to the file in Konqueror, right-click the file and select Actions | Edit as Root.

Thanks. I've found it, but I guess my problem will not be solved editing this menu....

My system had initially a 50 GB partition with XP. Later I've installed Kubuntu 7.10 in the non-partitioned space on disk (90GB, my main system now).

Today I've installed Ubuntu 7.10 to do some testing and let the installer resize Kubuntu partition to install itself.

Now I want remove Ubuntu. So I could remove the partition it created and remove its entries from Grub menu.

The problem is that in /boot/grub/menu.lst there is only three entries for linux (generic,recovery and memtest) and one for Windows, but I see six entries for Linux (three for Kubuntu and three for Ubuntu) when I boot the system.

The bottom line is: menu.lst is not showing the same that I see at boot.

Sould I to edit the /boot/grub/menu.lst of the other Ubuntu system (the one that I want to remove) ?

JB.

[Snowhog]

Re: Grub

Let's 'see' what your system 'looks' like. Open a console and type:

sudo fdisk -l

copy and paste the output. Then type:

cat /etc/fstab

copy and paste the output.

[integr8e]

Re: Grub

When you installed Kubuntu and Ubuntu, how did you partition you HDD? Did you do it manually or did you let the installer do it for you? There may be multiple GRUB sessions on your hard drive, one in your Kubuntu partition and one in your Ubuntu partition. That may be where your problem lies; if that's the case, I would suggest removing Ubuntu, booting back into Kubuntu, and running the command

sudo update-grub

That will update your /boot/grub/menu.lst file.

[judgebob]

Re: Grub

Let's 'see' what your system 'looks' like. Open a console and type:

sudo fdisk -l

copy and paste the output. Then type:

cat /etc/fstab

copy and paste the output.

Disk /dev/sda: 163.9 GB, 163928604672 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19929 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x832ce05f

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 7180 57673318+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 7181 18043 87257047+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda3 19342 19929 4723110 5 Extended
/dev/sda4 * 18044 19341 10426185 83 Linux
/dev/sda5 19406 19929 4208998+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 19342 19405 514017 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Partition table entries are not in disk order


# /etc/fstab: static file system information.
#
# -- This file has been automaticly generated by ntfs-config --
#
# <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>

proc /proc proc defaults 0 0
# Entry for /dev/sda2 :
UUID=9b1ce439-db0e-429c-87a9-92efdddb27b0 / ext3 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1
# Entry for /dev/sda5 :
UUID=d757d3de-2765-4939-8737-83b9681eb207 none swap sw 0 0
/dev/scd0 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec 0 0
/dev/fd0 /media/floppy0 auto rw,user,noauto,exec 0 0
/dev/sda1 /media/c ntfs-3g defaults,locale=en_US.UTF-8 0 0

That's all.

JB.

[Snowhog]

Re: Grub

Your fstab shows that you are currently running (booted) off of /dev/sda2 and that the swap partition for this OS is on /dev/sda5. So, your other *ubuntu installation is on /dev/sda4 and it's swap partition is on /dev/sda6.

What version are you running at the moment (booted into) - Ubuntu or Kubuntu?

[judgebob]

Re: Grub

When you installed Kubuntu and Ubuntu, how did you partition you HDD? Did you do it manually or did you let the installer do it for you? There may be multiple GRUB sessions on your hard drive, one in your Kubuntu partition and one in your Ubuntu partition. That may be where your problem lies; if that's the case, I would suggest removing Ubuntu, booting back into Kubuntu, and running the command

sudo update-grub

That will update your /boot/grub/menu.lst file.

When installed Kubuntu I let the installer to use all the free (unpartitioned) space on my disk (50 GB was already in use by WinXP NTFS partition).

When installed Ubuntu I let the installer to resize my Kubuntu partition automatically to have space for its installation, so I guess you are right.

I'll try following your directions.

I'm new to Linux, so perhaps I'm doing a silly question, but, could be better if a 'master' menu were stored in an special partition to allow multiple systems be managed from an 'isolated' place?

JB.

[judgebob]

Re: Grub

What version are you running at the moment (booted into) - Ubuntu or Kubuntu?

Kubuntu.

JB.

[Snowhog]

Re: Grub

Kubuntu installed first. Ubuntu installed second. Okay. You have three OS's on your HD.

Removing the Ubuntu installation isn't a problem; easy as a matter of fact. Doing it with GParted will be the easiest way to do so, if you have it. If you don't, and you can burn a LiveCD (K3b works great, and is installed), you can download the .iso file here. The file isn't large - 51Mb - so it doesn't take long to download and burn to CD.

[integr8e]

Re: Grub

Do what Snowhog suggested, and if you want, we can help you set up a separate /boot partition you can use for all your OS's - without having to reinstall

[judgebob]

Re: Grub

Kubuntu installed first. Ubuntu installed second. Okay. You have three OS's on your HD.

Yes.

Removing the Ubuntu installation isn't a problem; easy as a matter of fact. Doing it with GParted will be the easiest way to do so, if you have it. If you don't, and you can burn a LiveCD (K3b works great, and is installed), you can download the .iso file here. The file isn't large - 51Mb - so it doesn't take long to download and burn to CD.

I have GParted installed, but I'll download the live CD anyway, since I like experimentation and I'm sure that I'll need it in the near future

Thanks!!!

JB.

[judgebob]

Re: Grub

Do what Snowhog suggested, and if you want, we can help you set up a separate /boot partition you can use for all your OS's - without having to reinstall

Great, but not right now, I'm trying to do little Linux steps, one by one

Thanks!!!

JB.