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View Full Version : 9.10 Remix and Windows 7 GRUB Editing - WHERE?



lexpython
November 17th, 2009, 06:06 PM
So I've put Windows 7 and Ubuntu 9.10 Remix onto a HP Pavilion dv5. I would like to edit GRUB so that Windows 7 is the default OS. However, the menu.lst I've gotten so used to editing (I'm a intermediate novice) is not in the GRUB folder, and an uneditable file called "grub.cfg" seems to be it's stead. Also, GRUB is still showing Vista as an option and I want to get rid of that too. I can figure out the coding stuff (gedit) if someone can just tell me where I go to edit these! Is there a GUI built into Remix I'm missing? Regular-flavored 9.10 has the wonderful "Startup Option" GUI but Remix seems to be missing this vital piece!

darkod
November 17th, 2009, 06:18 PM
If you want gui try apt-get install startupmanager. But I don't know if it works in UNR.
For Grub2 basics:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1195275

Changing the default selection is easy, I believe it was in /etc/default/grub, you can edit it there. Don't forget you need sudo gedit.
Since you have experience with grub1 you know what default=0, default=1 means. :)
Be careful if you manage to remove the vista entry, it can change the order of titles and make your default value wrong.

PS. From the limited experience with grub2 I've had, there is something called OS Prober which detects other OSs automatically. Great for newbies but you get into trouble if it "thinks" it found some traces of bootloader, I guess your Vista entry. You can disable this os prober with:
sudo chmod -x /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober
You can enable it with +x
BUT, if you disable it, your win7 entry will also go away because it will not be detected automatically. You can put manual entries in /etc/grub.d/40_custom. The link above has some info about that and sample windows manual entry. This approach might be the way to go, otherwise the os prober will keep putting the Vista into grub2.
After every edit of grub2 you need:
sudo update-grub

lexpython
November 17th, 2009, 06:43 PM
Great, startupmanager totally worked. I knew it had to be really easy. Thanks for your help!

SereneWaffles
June 21st, 2010, 08:54 PM
Thanks for the post, I was also having this issue.

With regards to the Vista partition, I also had one after installing Win7 on my Gateway netbook. Curious as to what it was, I booted it. Turned out to be a recovery installer, so remove at your own risk.