Grub 2 Basics

[mörgæs]

The question is not specific to Lubuntu. Moved to Grub 2.

[Cavsfan]

I have ubuntu,lubuntu,and mint on 6 20 gig particians and have room for more butI've had problems with grub recognizining all the diferent activ partitions of which at this time 3 are actual partician and the others are part of the extended partician

I am pretty sure you could put all of those in the custom file /etc/grub.d/40_custom as mentioned in step 3 of the tutorial in my signature.
Then you would want to save that file as /etc/grub.d/06_custom and make it executable.
The 1st 2 steps pertain to making a custom background, but if you are not interested in that you could start at step 3.
Also, on the last page are some replies from drs305 on how to add other OSs to grub2.
Just make sure you enter sudo update-grub when you make any changes.

[amjjawad]

Hi drs305,

I have a multi-booting system (11 systems) on one 80GB IDE HDD on P4 with 512MB RAM.
Everything was fine until I upgraded my main system which is Lubuntu 11.10 to Lubuntu 12.04 and that was my first time ever to upgrade, I always do fresh new installation but I wanted to see what kind of mess the upgrade can make and I think I knew the answer.

Now, GRUB is acting up and I have 3 times the number of entries. I tried to use Boot Repair tool to re-install GRUB but that did not fix anything.

http://paste.ubuntu.com/965058/

I have no idea how to clean that mess. I need one entry for each system along with the recovery of that system ... just like any normal GRUB menu not like the mess I have right now.

I use that PC for testing and I always use GRUB Customizer to rename the entries after each installation.
I'm not sure why the upgrade did this?

Thanks in advance

[oldfred]

Hi amjjawad,

I thought grub2 was using the two level menu, but my system also presented my with all my systems. But the first thing I do is turn off os-prober and add my own 40_custom.

Since I want to directly boot the newest kernel in every install I use the partition boot for all Ubuntu (Debian?) installs as they have the link to the newest in /.

Cavsfan's link is good as I also learned from Ranch Hand on using the partition boot method. I usually throw in a few ISO boots (from drs305's instructions) and other things.

[amjjawad]

Hi amjjawad,

I thought grub2 was using the two level menu, but my system also presented my with all my systems. But the first thing I do is turn off os-prober and add my own 40_custom.

Since I want to directly boot the newest kernel in every install I use the partition boot for all Ubuntu (Debian?) installs as they have the link to the newest in /.

Cavsfan's link is good as I also learned from Ranch Hand on using the partition boot method. I usually throw in a few ISO boots (from drs305's instructions) and other things.

Hello my friend oldfred long time no see!

I tried to purge GRUB and re-install it but I got the same issue, triple or double entries and I have no idea how to clean that up. Editing GRUB2 is a bit hard to me as I didn't dive deep into that yet. I'm good in fixing simple stuff but editing GRUB in such cases is new to me. I will try to look into that link and try to find a way but ... let's see

P.S.
To explain it better:
For example, I have say "Lubuntu 12.04 - 3.2.0-24-generic on sda12" repeated two or three times. It should be only one entry for the same Kernel.

[oldfred]

Are you sure it is repeated and not different kernels? You can houseclean old kernels in each install to reduce entries.

But if repeated, it may be a script issue in os-prober of some sort? We have seen where a user created multiple copies of some scripts.

Several ways to houseclean older kernels. I like to keep two as a minimum.
Check current kernel:
lsb_release -a
Go to Synaptic Package Manager and search for linux-image.
More info in post #8
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1283521
HOWTO: Grub Customizer
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1664134
HOWTO: Remove Older Kernels via GUI (or CLI)
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1587462
http://www.liberiangeek.net/2010/07/...cid-lynx-grub/

If you want to try 40_custom you can add just one of your other Ubuntu entires with this. pick the partition number and edit partition number and label. I think cavsfan link has more detail.

gksudo gedit /etc/grub.d/40_custom
Then do:
sudo update-grub

I first saw this from Ranch hand
Note that this does not define the kernel. It defines the partition. It boots the newest bootable kernel that it finds at that partition. example based on sda13 change all 13's to your partition number.

menuentry "Ubuntu on sda13" {
set root=(hd0,13)
linux /vmlinuz root=/dev/sda13 ro quiet splash
initrd /initrd.img
}

If that boots your install in any of your partitions, then we can add all your other installs, and turn off os-prober. Then you only have one entry per install.

[Cavsfan]

Thanks oldfred for filling for drs305! I think he said he would be back Monday.

amjjawad, the How to in my signature seems intimidating at first but, the more you look at it the simpler it gets.
When ranch hand first told me about how to do this, I was very intimidated myself too. It took me a while to actually do the steps.
I thought since no one else had written a howto about it, with ranch hand's permission I created the tutorial.
It is pretty straight forward and with patience anyone can do it.

If you just do steps 1 through 5. You will have the custom entries on top and all of what you now have will be below that.
Just make sure you edit /etc/grub.d/40_custom put your custom entries in it and then save it as /etc/grub.d/06_custom.
This is what causes it to display at the very top.

When you get more comfortable with what you have, you can do step 6. Then you will only have the custom entries that you want displayed.

Keep in mind that Grub2 considers the last installed kernel to be the default one and not the highest numbered kernel, which is what one would think.

[loseby]

have a SSD with win7 and a Seagate 1tb drive that I just put 12.04 on.

when I boot it comes up with a " windows loading files" banner at the bottom ( much like when you first do a windows installation ) and then it boots straight to 12.04

lets change that ( have 2 computers side by side ) ...just installed updates and when rebooted it came up with a failed win7 message...do i want to fix error or continue booting.... I selected contine booting and straight to Ubuntu 12.04

help...GRUB doesnt show

edit" most probabley doesnt belong here as its just gone past a GRUB issue.... when I boot it gives me the option to Repair windows but nothing happens and if I select the other then it into 12.04.

[Cavsfan]

have a SSD with win7 and a Seagate 1tb drive that I just put 12.04 on.

when I boot it comes up with a " windows loading files" banner at the bottom ( much like when you first do a windows installation ) and then it boots straight to 12.04

lets change that ( have 2 computers side by side ) ...just installed updates and when rebooted it came up with a failed win7 message...do i want to fix error or continue booting.... I selected contine booting and straight to Ubuntu 12.04

help...GRUB doesnt show

edit" most probabley doesnt belong here as its just gone past a GRUB issue.... when I boot it gives me the option to Repair windows but nothing happens and if I select the other then it into 12.04.

Try this: enter this gksu gedit /etc/default/grub in a terminal.
Set GRUB_TIMEOUT=60 or 10 or whatever you want in seconds.
If you want the grub to display until you press a key enter GRUB_TIMEOUT=-1.
Be sure to enter sudo update-grub when finished or else the changes will be lost.

[oldfred]

@losbey

Download and run Boot-Repair. Run the Boot info report and post the link, so we can see your entire configuration. If adventurous you can run the boot repairs before we review it and it should not create any larger issues, but I would prefer to review first.

Boot Repair:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair
You can repair many boot issues with this or Create BootInfo report & post the link to a run of boot info script so we can see your exact configuration.