HOWTO: Grub Customizer

[GARoss]

GARoss,

Assuming you can boot Ubuntu, open a terminal (Applications, Accessories, Terminal) and run these commands:

grep menuentry /boot/grub/grub.cfg
gksu gedit /etc/default/grub

The first command will display the "menuentries" in your Grub2 menu. Count the menuentries starting from 0 and determine the Vista entry (e.g. if it's the third menuentry, the number would be 2).

Next edit /etc/default/grub and find the "DEFAULT=0" line and replace it with the new number. Save the file, then run:

sudo update-grub

Reboot.

If you need clarification it's explained in the "Tasks" link in my signature line.

Thanks. I'll try this.

[-jay-]

thank you this makes the boot more clean looking

[GARoss]

GARoss,

Assuming you can boot Ubuntu, open a terminal (Applications, Accessories, Terminal) and run these commands:

grep menuentry /boot/grub/grub.cfg
gksu gedit /etc/default/grub

The first command will display the "menuentries" in your Grub2 menu. Count the menuentries starting from 0 and determine the Vista entry (e.g. if it's the third menuentry, the number would be 2).

Next edit /etc/default/grub and find the "DEFAULT=0" line and replace it with the new number. Save the file, then run:

sudo update-grub

Reboot.

If you need clarification it's explained in the "Tasks" link in my signature line.

Thank you for your help. That did the trick!

[Dutch70]

Hello drs305,
Thank you for this tutorial. However I'm having one problem I haven't been able to get sorted out. I Multiboot several OS's and whenever I install Grub customizer it creates several options for Fedora in the Grub menu at start up. If I go to grub.cfg and delete them, it creates more. Any solution to this???

[drs305]

... whenever I install Grub customizer it creates several options for Fedora in the Grub menu at start up. If I go to grub.cfg and delete them, it creates more. Any solution to this???

Since grub.cfg is actually the 'end' product, any edits you make to it will be erased any time "update-grub" is run.

Grub Customizer works by replacing the normal menu-generating scripts with modified ones that should be invoked when "update-grub" is run. I don't use Fedora so I don't know much about how it is incorporated into the Grub2 menu.

If you post the contents of RESULTS.txt, which is generated by the boot info script available from the following link, we can see how your menu is structured. Run "sudo update-grub" to get back to the default G2 menu, then run the script.
http://bootinfoscript.sourceforge.net

I may not be able to tell you how GC can fix the problem, but perhaps it's creator, danielrichter, can. If we can't do it through GC, at the least I should be able to come up with a way outside of GC to change the menu for you. (You can also look at my signature line's "Tweaks" link to see how I'd probably do it).

[Chris.L]

This sounds great and I'm pretty sure I understand most of it. My question is what needs to be in the loader? I'm dual booting 10.04.1 LTS with Win 7. I have the following on grub 1.98-1ubuntu10
Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.32-28-generic
Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.32-28-generic (recovery mode)
Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.32-24-generic
Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.32-24-generic (recovery mode)
Memory test (memtest86+)
Memory test (memtest86+, serial console 115200)
Windows 7 (loader) (on /dev/sda1)
Windows 7 (loader) (on /dev/sda2)
Windows Vista (loader) (on /dev/sda3)

what I'm thinking from what I have read is the ...-24generics could be removed and one of the memtests could be, although I don't know which if either it would be. The Windows Vista I think is the recovery partition on windows but I am unsure. I would like to par this list down and rearrange so it boots Win 7, Ubuntu, then recoveries.
Thank you in advance,
Chris

[drs305]

This sounds great and I'm pretty sure I understand most of it. My question is what needs to be in the loader?
Chris

These would be the minimum items you would want. You will have to decide which Windows you need. The two non-Vista entries are probably because 7 has 'piggybacked' on the original Vista bootloader. You'll have to try them, but my guess is that you may need to start with the sda1 item:

Ubuntu, with Linux 2.6.32-28-generic
Windows 7

Now for some explanations.

• The memtest86+ entries are probably something you will never use. You can restore the option if you ever need it.
• Most people like having an extra older kernel, in case the new one fails for some reason. In that case, keep -24-generic.
• It's also convenient to have the current kernel's recovery mode available in case you need it. If you don't want it, you can remove it and if you need recovery mode press "e" to edit the main Ubuntu kernel line and remove "quiet splash" and add "single" to the end of the line. Then press CTRL-x to boot into recovery mode (Wouldn't having the menuentry be easier? )
• Use Grub Customizer to move Windows to the top.
• You can do all of these manually as well via the "Tasks" and "Tweaks" links in my signature line, but GC is easier.

[Dutch70]

Since grub.cfg is actually the 'end' product, any edits you make to it will be erased any time "update-grub" is run.

Grub Customizer works by replacing the normal menu-generating scripts with modified ones that should be invoked when "update-grub" is run. I don't use Fedora so I don't know much about how it is incorporated into the Grub2 menu.

If you post the contents of RESULTS.txt, which is generated by the boot info script available from the following link, we can see how your menu is structured. Run "sudo update-grub" to get back to the default G2 menu, then run the script.
http://bootinfoscript.sourceforge.net

I may not be able to tell you how GC can fix the problem, but perhaps it's creator, danielrichter, can. If we can't do it through GC, at the least I should be able to come up with a way outside of GC to change the menu for you. (You can also look at my signature line's "Tweaks" link to see how I'd probably do it).

I really do appreciate that drs305, but being that I've got about 8 OS's on my pc, and Fedora is the only one with a problem, I won't trouble you with it right now.

ps. I'ts not just grub customizer. If I so much as rename the way Fedora is listed, it generates more entries in my grub menu.

Thank you very much though,
Dave

[KingLewy]

Awesome. Thanks for this. My girlfriend's laptop used to have Vista before she upgraded to 7 and today I've had to reinstall GRUB for the THIRD time because her dad keeps trying to boot a Vista recovery partition which wipes the GRUB loader. Unchecked the Vista partition and all is swell. So easy. Thanks!

[dave_h]

I just found GC and installed it 2 days ago to my laptop which multiboots into ubuntu 10.10, as well as linux mint, windows vista and 3 puppy linux distros. All went well and I could re-order the grub2 entries and ignore those kernels I wanted to ignore, using GC. Sounds encouraging.

So I installed GC to my test PC which runs about 12 different distros including Win xp, ubuntu 10.10, ubuntu 10.04, mint, slitaz and some puppies. In this case I can't get GC to change any setting or delete any distro from the grub2 list. I have installed it in exactly the same way adding the ppa to software sources then using synaptic to download.

In both cases (laptop and test PC) Ubuntu 10.10 has the grub2 that does the multiboot and all updates are current. The only difference that may be significant is that for the test PC the distros are spread over 2 HDDs not one as for the laptop.

In both cases (laptop and test PC) I see a bin folder and a proxifiedScripts folder under /etc/grub.d and the 10_linux, 30_os-prober and 40_custom files have proxy after their name.

I also noticed that GC shows Ubuntu 10.04.1 four times in the test pc.

Anyone any idea what's going on and how I can get it to work.
Thanks