Grub 2 Title Tweaks Thread

[Skara Brae]

My menu says "Windows Vista", while it should / I want it to be "Windows XP Home". I read the first posting, and it is (probably) me, but the explanation of how to change lines in the GRUB2 menu is incomprehensible to me

I tried comparing the content & lines of my "30_os-prober" with the text in the first posting, and I can not find any (enough) comparison
I even used the "search" command (you know: CTRL-F) to find correct similarities.

I will just leave it as "Windows Vista"... (until I find an explanation for "n00bs" that I can understand, although I thought I was past the "n00b" stadium).
I am kind of a perfectionist ("XP" is not "Vista"), but then again I guess it doesn't matter *that* much (seeing "Vista" instead of "XP").

-oo-

Editing the GRUB menu of my previous 7.10 install was much easier than GRUB 2. It should be made (much) easier for people like me. This new way of editing the GRUB menu is not good (for much harder). This is just my opinion. Sorry.

[Agent.Logic_]

Skara Brae,

In section 3.A.1., you are asked to run the command:

sudo cat /boot/grub/grub.cfg | grep "menuentry" | cut -d '"' -f 2

This will print out all the "menu entries" that you see in GRUB during boot. In my case, this prints out:

menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.32-22-generic --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux.....
....
....
....
menuentry 'Windows Vista (loader) (on /dev/sda1)

If I wanted my Windows entry to say "******* Blista", I'd copy the title Windows Vista (loader) (on /dev/sda1), paste it like it is directed in section 3.A.4. (highlighted in red), and enter "******* Blista" in the next line (highlighted in blue). This if [ -z ${LONGNAME}... code appears in line 140 of the 30_os-prober file.

You might also want to look into the "Custom Menu" option in GRUB2. I agree with you that GRUB2 title tweaking is a bit hard to get head or tail of at first, you need a little patience trying to understand all of it. It took me a while to get a hang of it, but I like the "Custom Menu" option better because:

a) I can have titles like "******* Blista" or whatever I want it to be
b) It is relatively simpler (atleast it seems that way) than "regular" title tweaking.

It does come with its downsides though... Although you'd never have to edit the custom menu again for every time there is a kernel upgrade, if you are used to having the two most recent kernels in your boot menu, you'd have to edit the 2nd most recent kernel every time you upgrade.

Hope this helps (and hope I made sense!).

[Skara Brae]

Agent.Logic_

First of all - thank you very much for having taken the time to respond.

I took the time to re-read the explanation about GRUB2 again, and I _thought_ I had done it correctly just a minute ago, but after restarting my PC, it still says "Windows Vista" (or whatever it precisely says).

With GRUB I would have changed it long ago; I have done it in the past more than once, with 7.10 and also with Xubuntu 8.04. It was much easier (just perfect for a n00b with a bit of "under the hood" experience in Linux like myself).

I probably do something wrong (duh!), but I am not sure what exactly. I'll look into it again some other time...

-oo-

Whatever the reason may be to change something, making it more "complicated" than it was before is not a good change, in my opinion.

[drs305]

Skara Brae,

Added: I think the problem may be that the title would not be "Windows Vista (loader) (on /dev/sda1)" but would be "Windows Vista (loader)" or possibly "Windows Vista". The "(on /dev/sda1)" is the result of the ${DEVICE} portion of the script. If you are trying to match the ${LONGNAME}, don't include the "on /dev/sda1". If that doesn't fix things, then:

If you post your 30_os-prober file I'll be happy to take a look at it. Just put it between "code" tags by clicking on the # icon in the post's menu.

[Agent.Logic_]

I agree with drs305. It could be a DEVICE/LONGNAME issue. Why don't you post the entire contents of 30_os-prober file like he suggested, then we can see what's causing it to stay "Windows Vista."

Whatever the reason may be to change something, making it more "complicated" than it was before is not a good change, in my opinion.

Well, GRUB is undergoing a sea of change. They wouldn't make it more "complicated" on purpose unless they had a reason to: making it more powerful, advanced and robust. I know it's frustrating having to get used the apparently kazillion new options available now, but it's all for the good.

[Darktrax]

I know it's frustrating having to get used the apparently kazillion new options available now, but it's all for the good.

Does anyone still think that, for the average user, having to edit executable scripts just to get the impenetrable (but updateable) 'titles' re-worked into something meaningful is easier, less risky, friendlier, more intuitive, robust????

I have read this thread through. It contains accurate and excellent advice. You need to be doing root authorized operations. You need to back up the scripts you mess with from /etc/grub.d. You need to watch out for your speling mistaikes. You need to be certain to an extraordinary degree that you got it right!

This is because there comes a point where you have to shut down for re-boot, and then discover that you hosed the route back in to successfully re-booting your machine. The next step of fixing it via a liveCD intervention to find and fix the fumble is arguably worse than a re-install (for the average application user, that is..).

The motivations behind this are clear. The first arrangements to add executeable update stuff to menu.lst in such a way that grub would still only see additions as comments gave us those wonderful double ## and triple ### hash signs from Debian. (It would seem they are still with us in grub2) Now we have executable files that write other executable files!

Don't get me wrong folks - I am all agreed that the experts have done great work to make a new system with all kinds of benefits, even if mostly useful to other experts. I just think they lost sight of the needs of the ultimate user. I need a low risk tool to make an initial menu I want, maybe with ways to make it open further to display memory testing and recover options. For now, I have to settle for a little Post-It note that decodes which option is actually Ubuntu-Studio, PureDyne, etc. among other OS kernels.

[drs305]

Darktrax,

I agree with much of what you say. The solution IMO is for someone to develop a nice GUI tool (StartUp-Manager 2?) which can perform most of these tasks.

The scripts are fairly straightforward and it would not be extremely complicated to create a small app which could do most of the tweaks herein: set the timeout, default OS, choose the wallpaper, rename or hide titles, change the menu resolution, etc. StartUp-Manager can do some of them but not all.

Of course, it's easy to volunteer other people's time, but the GUI users of Linux/Ubuntu would be extremely grateful for such an app and someday one will probably appear.

[Darktrax]

The solution IMO is for someone to develop a nice GUI tool (StartUp-Manager 2?) which can perform most of these tasks.

drs305,

I am sure there are lots of things our folk would suggest in the wish list list for a grub GUI "first appearance view and features" discussion.

For me, having to tell a retired lady just getting used to the joys of internet access with a new laptop, featuring Lucid worked up to be somewhat prettier than the default, to just touch nothing until the grub display went away by itself.. was a little disappointing!

I do agree that the folk who did all this work (for others who were volunteering their time!), do not deserve piles of negative critique. They wrote it, so they have some right to say how it works. Even so, I would offer the suggestion that UN-commenting lines to DIS-able features (double-negative!) is not the way to make it easier, and surely not too awkward to turn the logic around. I much prefer that to comment a line out means the feature is not there. Leave the line in - and it does what it says. For something as important as whether the PC will boot again, at my level of meddle-ability, I do not want to be editing these scripts!

[k3lt01]

For me, having to tell a retired lady just getting used to the joys of internet access with a new laptop, featuring Lucid worked up to be somewhat prettier than the default, to just touch nothing until the grub display went away by itself.. was a little disappointing!

This begs the question of: Why is GRUB being displayed anyway on a machine that probably only has one OS on it? Or am I missing something here?

[n1ght5t4lk3r]

Great thread, it sorted out a little quandry of mine from another thread. Thanks drs305 for directing me here.

and for this guys issue...

Skara Brae,

Added: I think the problem may be that the title would not be "Windows Vista (loader) (on /dev/sda1)" but would be "Windows Vista (loader)" or possibly "Windows Vista". The "(on /dev/sda1)" is the result of the ${DEVICE} portion of the script. If you are trying to match the ${LONGNAME}, don't include the "on /dev/sda1". If that doesn't fix things, then:

If you post your 30_os-prober file I'll be happy to take a look at it. Just put it between "code" tags by clicking on the # icon in the post's menu.

I can say that its almost likely the issue, since I followed the directions and to start ended up with no change in the name I desired to change, but then after the above quoted reply I dropped the "(on /dev/sda1)" or in my case sda2, and it worked perfectly.