HOWTO: Grub Customizer

[drs305]

I've updated to 2.51 (using Ubuntu 11.10, 64 bit) but still get errors. I've contacted Daniel via Launchpad and hopefully we can provide him with the information he needs to investigate this.

[Thad E Ginathom]

Cheers.

I did take a look around there, as well as some general googling, but didn't come up with anything yet.

[drs305]

Cheers.

I did take a look around there, as well as some general googling, but didn't come up with anything yet.

I have been in contact with Daniel. He suggested removing the proxy scripts in /etc/grub.d This didn't work for me but perhaps it might for you.

In my case, GC works fine in Oneric 32 bit but something in my 64 bit setup is causing problems which prevents it from opening.

[2CV67]

Hello & thanks for all the hard work on this thread!

I installed Grub Customizer this morning & am struggling with a strange problem...

Let me spell out the problem simply first, then add messy background afterwards:

Every time I SAVE Grub Customizer & close & re-open it, it adds a new, ticked, instance of my secondary LTS Ubuntu kernel.
The problem must occur on closing, not re-opening, because if I reboot after closing, then the Grub screen shows the extra LTS already.
See screenshot:



Now for the messy background:
Until recently, I had a main Ubuntu 11.04 installation on sda3 & a backup LTS10.04 Ubuntu on sda5. (Also XP on sda1).
Both Ubuntu's had their own Legacy Grub.
Primary Grub stage2 was on sda3 with a chainloader to LTS.

Then an upgrade of 11.04 to 11.10 failed, so I did a clean install of 11.10 on sda3.
That obviously came with Grub2.
I did nothing special & noted that Grub2 seemed to find 11.10 & LTS & XP OK & many attempts at booting to all of them went OK.

This morning, I installed Grub Customizer & initially used it to hide some unwanted old kernels & memtests etc.
It seemed to work OK but I maybe wasn't watching very carefully.
Then I tried to put the OS prober block at the top & started finding I could not "hit" the default entry on reboot.
I slowly noticed that every time I tried, the Grub screen selected one entry out & that I seemed to have too many LTS entries!

A lot of playing around pinned the problem down to "Save+Close G.C. adds new LTS entry" as mentioned above but from there on I am lost...

Maybe this is related to the fact that there is still Legacy Grub alive & kicking on sda5?

I would very much appreciate any help in diagnosis & cure!

Thanks!

[drs305]

2CV67,

Are the entries you are concerned with the 3.0.12 kernel entries under the "Previous Linux entries" section? If not, which entries are of concern?

I'll await your response before going into things you may not be interested in...

[2CV67]

No - the entries under "Previous Linux versions" are legitimate.

The concern is with the 10 identical entries "Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS, kernel 2.6.32-37-generic (on /dev/sda5)" under "os-prober (custom)".
There is really only one such kernel & the 9 copies have been invented by G.C.

[drs305]

2CV67,

os-prober may be reading the grub.cfg file from your sda5 partition. If a grub.cfg file exists on another partition, Grub 2 will import the contents of the 10_linux section rather than read the partition contents directly. So if the other grub.cfg file contains multiple instances of the same kernel for some reason, they will be imported 'as is' to your current grub.cfg file.

Depending on what it looks like (if it includes all these entries), you may be able to solve the issue by deleting the sda5 grub.cfg file.

A more conservative approach would be to edit the sda5 grub.cfg file and remove all the extra entries if they exist.

Here is a way to inspect and edit your additional grub.cfg file and update your current grub to see if it helps:

mount | grep sda5 # Check if sda5 is alread mounted
sudo mount /dev/sda5 /mnt # If not already mounted elsewhere
gksudo gedit /mnt/boot/grub/grub.cfg # Substitute path if already mounted

Check the entries under the 10_linux section. Are there multiple listings of the 2.6.32-37 kernel? If so, remove all but one and save the file.

Unmount sda5 and then update grub:

sudo umount /mnt
sudo update-grub

[2CV67]

There is no grub.cfg file in sda5 (LTS).
/boot/grub there contains the usual items for Legacy Grub, like menu.lst etc.

I notice that grub.cfg file in sda3 (11.10) has 2 entries for "Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS, kernel 2.6.32-37-generic (on /dev/sda5)" - not including the "recovery" one.
I suppose that is wrong, but don't know how to fix it.
See attached:

#
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
#
# It is automatically generated by grub-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/00_header ###
if [ -s $prefix/grubenv ]; then
  set have_grubenv=true
  load_env
fi
set default="0"
if [ "${prev_saved_entry}" ]; then
  set saved_entry="${prev_saved_entry}"
  save_env saved_entry
  set prev_saved_entry=
  save_env prev_saved_entry
  set boot_once=true
fi

function savedefault {
  if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then
    saved_entry="${chosen}"
    save_env saved_entry
  fi
}

function recordfail {
  set recordfail=1
  if [ -n "${have_grubenv}" ]; then if [ -z "${boot_once}" ]; then save_env recordfail; fi; fi
}

function load_video {
  insmod vbe
  insmod vga
  insmod video_bochs
  insmod video_cirrus
}

insmod part_msdos
insmod ext2
set root='(hd0,msdos3)'
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 31c1a1b4-1e0e-4e32-a19d-f5e245b285f2
if loadfont /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2 ; then
set gfxmode=1024x768
  load_video
  insmod gfxterm
  insmod part_msdos
  insmod ext2
  set root='(hd0,msdos3)'
  search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 31c1a1b4-1e0e-4e32-a19d-f5e245b285f2
  set locale_dir=($root)/boot/grub/locale
  set lang=en_IE
  insmod gettext
fi
terminal_output gfxterm
if [ "${recordfail}" = 1 ]; then
  set timeout=-1
else
  set timeout=10
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/00_header ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###
set menu_color_normal=white/black
set menu_color_highlight=black/light-gray
if background_color 44,0,30; then
  clear
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
if [ ${recordfail} != 1 ]; then
  if [ -e ${prefix}/gfxblacklist.txt ]; then
    if hwmatch ${prefix}/gfxblacklist.txt 3; then
      if [ ${match} = 0 ]; then
        set linux_gfx_mode=keep
      else
        set linux_gfx_mode=text
      fi
    else
      set linux_gfx_mode=text
    fi
  else
    set linux_gfx_mode=keep
  fi
else
  set linux_gfx_mode=text
fi
export linux_gfx_mode
if [ "$linux_gfx_mode" != "text" ]; then load_video; fi
menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.0.0-14-generic' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
	recordfail
	set gfxpayload=$linux_gfx_mode
	insmod gzio
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='(hd0,msdos3)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 31c1a1b4-1e0e-4e32-a19d-f5e245b285f2
	linux	/boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-14-generic root=UUID=31c1a1b4-1e0e-4e32-a19d-f5e245b285f2 ro vga=796  quiet splash vt.handoff=7
	initrd	/boot/initrd.img-3.0.0-14-generic
}
menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.0.0-14-generic (recovery mode)' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
	recordfail
	insmod gzio
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='(hd0,msdos3)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 31c1a1b4-1e0e-4e32-a19d-f5e245b285f2
	echo	'Loading Linux 3.0.0-14-generic ...'
	linux	/boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-14-generic root=UUID=31c1a1b4-1e0e-4e32-a19d-f5e245b285f2 ro recovery nomodeset vga=796
	echo	'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
	initrd	/boot/initrd.img-3.0.0-14-generic
}
submenu "Previous Linux versions" {
menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.0.0-12-generic' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
	recordfail
	set gfxpayload=$linux_gfx_mode
	insmod gzio
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='(hd0,msdos3)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 31c1a1b4-1e0e-4e32-a19d-f5e245b285f2
	linux	/boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-12-generic root=UUID=31c1a1b4-1e0e-4e32-a19d-f5e245b285f2 ro vga=796  quiet splash vt.handoff=7
	initrd	/boot/initrd.img-3.0.0-12-generic
}
menuentry 'Ubuntu, with Linux 3.0.0-12-generic (recovery mode)' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
	recordfail
	insmod gzio
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='(hd0,msdos3)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 31c1a1b4-1e0e-4e32-a19d-f5e245b285f2
	echo	'Loading Linux 3.0.0-12-generic ...'
	linux	/boot/vmlinuz-3.0.0-12-generic root=UUID=31c1a1b4-1e0e-4e32-a19d-f5e245b285f2 ro recovery nomodeset vga=796
	echo	'Loading initial ramdisk ...'
	initrd	/boot/initrd.img-3.0.0-12-generic
}
}
### END /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ###
### END /etc/grub.d/20_linux_xen ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/20_os-prober_proxy ###
menuentry "Windows NT/2000/XP (on /dev/sda1)" --class windows --class os {
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod fat
	set root='(hd0,msdos1)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 2b1b-1302
	drivemap -s (hd0) ${root}
	chainloader +1
}
menuentry "Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS, kernel 2.6.32-37-generic (on /dev/sda5)" --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='(hd0,msdos5)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 5998da7e-4123-4481-80f0-99a6f3c5e244
	linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-37-generic root=UUID=5998da7e-4123-4481-80f0-99a6f3c5e244 ro splash
	initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-37-generic
}
menuentry "Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS, kernel 2.6.32-37-generic (on /dev/sda5)" --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='(hd0,msdos5)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 5998da7e-4123-4481-80f0-99a6f3c5e244
	linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-37-generic root=UUID=5998da7e-4123-4481-80f0-99a6f3c5e244 ro quiet splash
	initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-37-generic
}
menuentry "Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS, kernel 2.6.32-37-generic (recovery mode) (on /dev/sda5)" --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='(hd0,msdos5)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 5998da7e-4123-4481-80f0-99a6f3c5e244
	linux /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-37-generic root=UUID=5998da7e-4123-4481-80f0-99a6f3c5e244 ro single
	initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-37-generic
}
### END /etc/grub.d/20_os-prober_proxy ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/30_memtest86+_proxy ###
menuentry "Memory test (memtest86+)" {
	insmod part_msdos
	insmod ext2
	set root='(hd0,msdos3)'
	search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 31c1a1b4-1e0e-4e32-a19d-f5e245b285f2
	linux16	/boot/memtest86+.bin
}
### END /etc/grub.d/30_memtest86+_proxy ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
### END /etc/grub.d/40_custom ###

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/41_custom ###
if [ -f  $prefix/custom.cfg ]; then
  source $prefix/custom.cfg;
fi
### END /etc/grub.d/41_custom ###

[drs305]

There is no grub.cfg file in sda5 (LTS).
/boot/grub there contains the usual items for Legacy Grub, like menu.lst etc.

I notice that grub.cfg file in sda3 (11.10) has 2 entries for "Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS, kernel 2.6.32-37-generic (on /dev/sda5)" - not including the "recovery" one.
I suppose that is wrong, but don't know how to fix it.

If you are no longer using Grub legacy on any OS, delete any menu.lst file you find. Just as G2 imports the contents of grub.cfg files, it will 'mine' menu.lst files it discovers as well.

You would edit the sda3 file the same way as I described in the previous post, mounting sda3 instead of sda5. Other than that, the commands would be the same.

Besides editing these entries, there are two other ways of 'cleaning up' your other grub menus.

The first would be to completely remove any menu.cfg or menu.lst file on your other partitions. The advantage is that G2 would be forced to explore the partition directly rather than rely on (and include) entries in existing menus. The disadvantage is that it would be marginally more difficult to boot into other Ubuntu if G2 breaks in your current system.

Another way to clean your menus up would be to boot into those releases, then run "sudo update-grub" within that OS. It should update the Grub menu for that OS (but won't change the G2 menu of your default OS). Once you have updated grub from within the non-default OS, you can edit /boot/grub/grub.cfg to see if it has multiple entries. If it does contain multiple entries, you could manually remove them (but don't run 'update-grub' from within that OS afterward).

[2CV67]

OK - thanks!

I looked in the menu.lst in sda5 & there were 2 entries there for the LTS kernel - one with UUID address & one with root/(hd0,x) address (from a previous exercise with GAG & Grub...).

I removed the redundant entry & Grub Customizer is now functioning correctly - it no longer adds unwanted copies of the LTS entry when saved & closed.

Just to tidy things up - is there any way to remove all the existing unwanted entries in G.C. ?

Again - many thanks!