How to have a custom Grub2 menu that is maintenance free

[Cavsfan]

I just added the things for Utopic Mate Remix 14.10 from post #258 to the wiki for the font creation command and the location where the font colors are specified.
I had a hard time finding a picture that would work. I think the first 3 I tried did not work but the 4th one did. So, if the picture does not show at boot, try another one.

[Cavsfan]

Turns out when I specified things for only Utopic Mate, they were actually meant for Utopic period and I believe all versions afterwards.

The font is now in a different location and the font colors too. I'll try to correct that as soon as I can.

I just customized Vivid Gnome and it was the same as Utopic.

[Cavsfan]

I went ahead and made the changes. Let me know if you find any errors.

[Cavsfan]

A screenie of Vivid Vervet 15.04 grub with the following colors:

        echo " set color_normal=red/black"
        echo " set menu_color_normal=black/black"
        echo " set menu_color_highlight=yellow/black"

[Cavsfan]

A screenshot of my latest menu:



It doesn't do justice looking at that picture compared to what the screen actually looks like. I'd have to use flash to get a better picture but that makes a big bright spot on the picture.

I got rid of a few systems: Mint 13 and Utopic Unicorn, leaving LTS versions, the developmental version Vivid Vervet 15.04 and of course windows.
I remember having one Ubuntu and Windows 7 on here. Having more than one is so much better as you can copy stuff back and forth across partitions.

I tried to put this blue circle picture on Precise but it would not work. I tried copying the one from that screen on Trusty and also downloaded a new one but neither would work.

All I got was the font sizes and black and white font colors. But when I did get one to work the background, the font colors and everything came together.

So a lot depends on that picture. Just because the output of sudo update-grub lists the picture name does not mean it will show at boot time.
Sometimes you just have to find another picture. Been there many times.

[Cavsfan]

Re-installed Vivid Vervet 15.04 on the 18th and got an update to grub today so I thought I'd customize it. The first picture I tried worked amazingly.

I used these colors:

        echo " set color_normal=cyan/black"
        echo " set menu_color_normal=black/black"
        echo " set menu_color_highlight=red/black"

So, with black as the normal menu color it is hard to see in the picture but not really hard to see on the screen.

[Cavsfan]

A much better looking menu on Vivid, which is also my wallpaper:



Colors:

        echo " set color_normal=light-green/black"
        echo " set menu_color_normal=yellow/black"
        echo " set menu_color_highlight=white/black"

[Cavsfan]

Ubuntu Vivid Vervet 15.04 is going to have upstart as the default startup daemon and systemd will be available as an option.

upstart description.

systemd description.

Explanation of the difference between using upstart and systemd.

There is a way to make systemd default and upstart as the option permanently.

If you choose to make systemd default you have to remember to enter sudo update-grub after installing the systemd-sysv package.
Or else the change will not take effect until either the next kernel installation, which performs sudo update-grub or when you enter it in terminal.

If you leave upstart as default and want an option on your grub menu to boot with systemd this would be the menuentries in /etc/grub.d/06_custom:

menuentry "Vivid Vervet 15.04" {
    set root=(hd0,9)
        linux /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda9 ro quiet splash
        initrd /initrd.img
}
menuentry "Vivid Vervet 15.04 systemd" {
    set root=(hd0,9)
        linux /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda9 ro quiet splash init=/lib/systemd/systemd
        initrd /initrd.img
}
menuentry "Vivid Vervet 15.04 (Recovery Mode)" {
    set root=(hd0,9)
        linux /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda9 ro recovery nomodeset
        initrd /initrd.img
}

If you make the permanent switch to make systemd default and want an option to boot into upstart this would be the menuentries in /etc/grub.d/06_custom:

menuentry "Vivid Vervet 15.04" {
    set root=(hd0,9)
        linux /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda9 ro quiet splash
        initrd /initrd.img
}
menuentry "Vivid Vervet 15.04 upstart" {
    set root=(hd0,9)
        linux /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda9 ro quiet splash init=/sbin/upstart
        initrd /initrd.img
}
menuentry "Vivid Vervet 15.04 (Recovery Mode)" {
    set root=(hd0,9)
        linux /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda9 ro recovery nomodeset
        initrd /initrd.img
}

Of course change the red part to match your hard disk and partition that Vivid Vervet 15.05 is installed on and enter sudo update-grub to make these changes "stick".

[watchpocket]

I used grub-customizer (version 4.0.6) recently to try to change the order of the grub2 menu. Now when I run sudo update-grub at the command-line, I get syntax errors. Before I try to do anything more to set up my grub2, I'd like to fix this, but I'm not sure where to start.

I have three 1-terabyte drives. I'm running Ubuntu MATE 14.04.1 on /dev/sda1/ and Ubuntu 12.04.5 Precise on /dev/sdb1.

/dev/sdc is newly installed (with no OS on it) and will be for data files. On 14.04 I have GNU GRUB version 2.02~beta2-9ubuntu1.

Here is the output of sudo update-grub, when run from within 14.04:

Generating grub configuration file ...
Found theme: /boot/grub/themes/ubuntu-mate/theme.txt
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.elf
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-45-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-45-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-44-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-44-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-39-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-39-generic
Found Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS (12.04) on /dev/sdb1
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-45-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-45-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-44-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-44-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-39-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-39-generic
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.elf
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin
Found Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS (12.04) on /dev/sdb1
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-45-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-45-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-44-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-44-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.13.0-39-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.13.0-39-generic
error: syntax error.
error: Incorrect command.
error: syntax error.
error: Incorrect command.
error: syntax error.
Syntax error at line 637
Syntax errors are detected in generated GRUB config file.
Ensure that there are no errors in /etc/default/grub
and /etc/grub.d/* files or please file a bug report with
/boot/grub/grub.cfg.new file attached.
done

The only file I have -- among all of /etc/default/grub, /etc/grub.d/* and /boot/grub/* -- that has 637 lines in it is the uneditable /boot/grub/grub.cfg.new .
(It's 687 lines long and I can post it if needed.) There is a /boot/grub/grub.cfg file, but it's only 514 lines.

Here's my /etc/default/grub file:

  1 # If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
  2 # /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
  3 # For full documentation of the options in this file, see:
  4 #   info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'
  5 
  6 GRUB_DEFAULT="Ubuntu 14.04"
  7 #GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT="0"
  8 GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET="true"
  9 GRUB_TIMEOUT="10"
 10 GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR="`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`"
 11 GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
 12 GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="persistent"
 13 
 14 # Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs
 15 # This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains
 16 # the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD ...)
 17 #GRUB_BADRAM="0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef"
 18 
 19 # Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only)
 20 #GRUB_TERMINAL="console"
 21 
 22 # The resolution used on graphical terminal
 23 # note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
 24 # you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
 25 #GRUB_GFXMODE="640x480"
 26 
 27 # Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
 28 #GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID="true"
 29 
 30 # Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entries
 31 #GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY="true"
 32 
 33 # Uncomment to get a beep at grub start
 34 #GRUB_INIT_TUNE="480 440 1"
 35 
 36 GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT="false"
 37 GRUB_THEME="/boot/grub/themes/ubuntu-mate/theme.txt"
 38 export GRUB_COLOR_NORMAL="light-gray/black"
 39 export GRUB_COLOR_HIGHLIGHT="magenta/black"
 40 
 41 GRUB_FONT="/boot/grub/unicode.pf2"

I'll continue to read up on GRUB2, but thanks for ideas how to fix this in the meantime.

[deadflowr]

You could post the error line that the grub.cfg.new has, which should give us an idea of what's wrong.
The line is the 637 line, so either copy that line from a text editor, (gedit has a quick option --ctrl + I to go to a line)
or post the output from

sed -n '637p' /boot/grub/grub.cfg.new

for us to look at.