Grub 2 Basics

[zika]

Grub(Natty): Is there a way (yet) to make some other than first kernel in the list as a default. I’m talking about this new Grub version with separation of latest and previous kernels into two pages...
When that appeared as a feature, I've made a contraption as a sort of a solution by editing appropriate file (there is a thread somewhere here about that) but... That is not a good solution...

Does Customizer work with NN version of grub? Yet, I do not like to fiddle with such a thing as a Grub through some SW...

[zika]

THANKS! It worked perfectly.


PS: the older kernels are removed by apt-get autoremove, that I apply after apt-get upgrade, if I am not mistaken.

I beg to differ. I'm using autoremove every day several times and never (ever) it offered me to remove any of kernels, and believe me, there were lots of them...

[Gonzalo_VC]

As fas as I saw, you can choose which version is to be booted by default: the first or second, or any other. They are listed from newer to older, but it is not mandatory to boot by the first one in the list.

I am running 10.04/Lucid Lynx. Don't know about 11.04 Natty Narwhal.

Good luck.

[zika]

I am running 10.04/Lucid Lynx. Don't know about 11.04 Natty Narwhal.

I think it is different...
I wish it was not... Feature that looks like a bug...

[drs305]

Grub(Natty): Is there a way (yet) to make some other than first kernel in the list as a default. I’m talking about this new Grub version with separation of latest and previous kernels into two pages...

Does Customizer work with NN version of grub? Yet, I do not like to fiddle with such a thing as a Grub through some SW...

I haven't spent a lot of time with Grub 1.99 yet, as Natty won't be 'officially' released until next month and the Grub 2 files may still change further.

If you just want to boot a submenu entry, changing the "DEFAULT=" value in /etc/default/grub still appears to work, even though you may not see the menuentry on the grub screen. You can determine the number to use in the DEFAULT entry with this command, which counts and numbers the menuentries (or just count them manually in /boot/grub/grub.cfg):

grep menuentry /boot/grub/grub.cfg | cut -b 1-11 --complement | cut -d "'" -f1 | cut -d "\"" -f 1 | nl --starting-line-number=0
or more simply:
grep menuentry /boot/grub/grub.cfg  # Count menuentries starting with 0.

If you want to display all the kernels and eliminate the submenu feature, here is an edit of /etc/grub.d/10_linux that will eliminate the linux kernel submenu. These lines (uncommented) appear at the bottom of the file. Do not comment the "done" line.

# if [ "$list" ] && ! $in_submenu; then
# echo "submenu \"Previous Linux versions\" {"
# in_submenu=:
# fi
done

#if $in_submenu; then
# echo "}"
#fi

Run "sudo update-grub" after saving the changes.

I can probably come up with a way to display only specific kernels in the main menu, but I haven't done it yet and will probably not do so until Natty is released. At that point, if I come up with a solution, I'll put it in my "Tweaks" thread, linked to in my signature line.

[zika]

I haven't spent a lot of time with Grub 1.99 yet, as Natty won't be 'officially' released until next month and the Grub 2 files may still change further.

If you just want to boot a submenu entry, changing the "DEFAULT=" value in /etc/default/grub still appears to work, even though you may not see the menuentry on the grub screen. You can determine the number to use in the DEFAULT entry with this command, which counts and numbers the menuentries (or just count them manually in /boot/grub/grub.cfg):

grep menuentry /boot/grub/grub.cfg | cut -b 1-11 --complement | cut -d "'" -f1 | cut -d "\"" -f 1 | nl --starting-line-number=0
or more simply:
grep menuentry /boot/grub/grub.cfg  # Count menuentries starting with 0.

If you want to display all the kernels and eliminate the submenu feature, here is an edit of /etc/grub.d/10_linux that will eliminate the linux kernel submenu. These lines (uncommented) appear at the bottom of the file. Do not comment the "done" line.


Run "sudo update-grub" after saving the changes.

I can probably come up with a way to display only specific kernels in the main menu, but I haven't done it yet and will probably not do so until Natty is released. At that point, if I come up with a solution, I'll put it in my "Tweaks" thread, linked to in my signature line.

You are writing exactly (as far as I recall) the „patch“ that I posted as soon as I wrote about this „problem“, months ago...
At that time changing „default“ in /etc/default/grub did not work and it did not work numerous times in between, when I tried...
It works, at my place, only in conjunction with the patch, until grub gets upgraded...
I'm at peace with that but not happy...

UPDATE: @drs305: I am sorry. You are right. Behaivour have changed and, now, changing „default“ works, even though it is not shown in GRUB menu. Thank You for making me try that again... I, simply, gave up...

[drs305]

UPDATE: @drs305: Behaivour have changed and, now, changing „default“ works, even though it is not shown in GRUB menu. Thank You for making me try that again... I, simply, gave up...

Glad it's working for you now. As I mentioned, Grub 1.99 is still getting some of the kinks worked out of it. I remember when the "DEFAULT" setting didn't work when the submenu was introduced - in fact I discussed it with the devs at the time. That's probably when you were trying it. Fortunately they have fixed that issue.

[zika]

Glad it's working for you now. As I mentioned, Grub 1.99 is still getting some of the kinks worked out of it. I remember when the "DEFAULT" setting didn't work when the submenu was introduced - in fact I discussed it with the devs at the time. That's probably when you were trying it. Fortunately they have fixed that issue.

Well, it sort of doesn't... It fooled me that it works for kernels inside that submenu. But it doesn't. If You choose n=2 it invokes the first from the sub-menu. That made me happy too early... If You set n=3 it will go to the 3rd in main menu. So, all but the first in sub-menu are, still, inaccessible...
So, nothing, really, changed...

[drs305]

Well, it sort of doesn't... It fooled me that it works for kernels inside that submenu.

Interesting. If you post RESULTS.txt from the boot info script I can take a look and see if I can find out what's going on.

Added:
If you haven't run the script don't bother. I spent about 20 minutes testing various submenu options and it appears the feature is still pretty buggy. I didn't have enough time to isolate exactly what is failing but if I figure out a pattern I'll submit a bug report and let you know.

[zika]

Interesting. If you post RESULTS.txt from the boot info script I can take a look and see if I can find out what's going on.

Added:
If you haven't run the script don't bother. I spent about 20 minutes testing various submenu options and it appears the feature is still pretty buggy. I didn't have enough time to isolate exactly what is failing but if I figure out a pattern I'll submit a bug report and let you know.

Yeah, I know. I've run that script several times, for my own sake. Problem is that submenu is made but no infrastructure is provided to call anything from it. Several lines of code would suffice... I've corrected 10_linux, again, and will do that couple of times in future. I hate, only, when I forget it, after grub upgrade, and end up in memorytest or similar, Windows, even worse, in the early morning... But, that is the only time I get back to that partition which keeps old stuff... Memories...