Grub 2 Title Tweaks Thread

[bachor]

Thank You drs305

Thanks to your help I was able to easy remove "MEMTEST86+", hide Windows 7 recovery entry, change Windows 7 name and eliminate "(sda)" in my dualboot Win 7 with Xubuntu 11.04 [Grub2]

[linuxaddix]

thats a lot of work if you ask me the simplest way i did mine is right here:

nstall Instructions:
Open Synaptic Package Manager and Add repository:
ppa:ingalex/super-boot-manager
sudo apt-get install "super-boot-manager"

after thats done go into accessories and it'll be there ...superboot manager
be careful when using this you need to do it with the one that has /dev after the headers if you're dual-booted
single boot not to worry.and its simple.
as far as hiding memtest just go to synaptics and remove it
enjoy

[c.cobb]

how to change GRUB Title (GNU GRUB Version 1.97, Ubuntu) become my Distro name?

I have found several files in the Grub2 libraries that define the title during the running of scripts, but I haven't been able to find the one that actually changes the title. It's possible that the main title is not editable via any normal means by the user.

If you find an answer please let us know.

What's your definition of normal? ;-) And are you still interested in a solution?

I suppose that recompiling Grub2 would be one possibility, but that's kinda boring! Another way is to patch the binary file that has the menu title string. If you do this with Grub 1.99, you will have 32 characters to work with. See attached screen shot.

Here's a quick how to, and some fun for a rainy afternoon.

> sudo apt-get install ncurses-hexedit

> cp /boot/grub/normal.mod /tmp

> hexeditor /tmp/normal.mod  
                             /-------------------------------
0000D740  6E 6D 65 6E  74 00 47 4E   55 20 47 52  55 42 20 20   nment.GNU GRUB
0000D750  76 65 72 73  69 6F 6E 20   25 73 00 31  2E 39 39 2D   version %s.1.99-
0000D760  31 32 75 62  75 6E 74 75   35 00 00 3E  00 67 72 75   12ubuntu5..>.gru
          ---------------------------/

Note the characters "25 73 00" the middle of the string. It would be best to leave these unchanged and wrap your new title around this part.

If you run the ncurses hexeditor, use Ctrl+W to search for the title string. Use Ctrl+C to bail out without saving, and Ctrl+X to save the changes. (You did make a backup copy, right?) Also handy to have is a page of Ascii character codes open while you're editing.
Enjoy,

p.d. I thought about including the patched normal.mod file here, but would rather not be the source of unsupported junk in this forum. Besides, what else were you going to do today?

[jwestbury]

After much hair-pulling, I found this thread, which seems to have fixed my issue with being unable to get a hidden Grub menu when using multiple operating systems.

Unfortunately, this seems to have had a strange side effect, or else I made some other mistake in my Grub configuration: Now, my splash screen will not display until I press a key -- before that, it will just display a blank screen, and eventually boot into the default menu option.

I'm trying to display a splash screen, providing the user a prompt to hold Shift in order to display the Grub menu -- Ubuntu (Lucid) will boot, launch a script, and perform and automated restore of a Windows partition image, if the user selects this option, otherwise it will boot into Windows.

Is there any way to have the splash screen display properly (that is, without pressing a key) while doing the multi-OS hidden thing? (I believe "thing" is the technical term here, yes?)

[drs305]

After much hair-pulling, I found this thread, which seems to have fixed my issue with being unable to get a hidden Grub menu when using multiple operating systems.

Unfortunately, this seems to have had a strange side effect, or else I made some other mistake in my Grub configuration: Now, my splash screen will not display until I press a key -- before that, it will just display a blank screen, and eventually boot into the default menu option.

I'm trying to display a splash screen, providing the user a prompt to hold Shift in order to display the Grub menu -- Ubuntu (Lucid) will boot, launch a script, and perform and automated restore of a Windows partition image, if the user selects this option, otherwise it will boot into Windows.

Is there any way to have the splash screen display properly (that is, without pressing a key) while doing the multi-OS hidden thing? (I believe "thing" is the technical term here, yes?)

jwestbury

Welcome to the Ubuntu Forums.

I'm not sure I understand your request completely, but I think you want a first screen with only an instruction and then would boot to a selection if nothing is done?

One way to set it up is to have the first menu contain just two entries. The first would be a menuentry which takes you to another Grub 2 menu. You could make the menuentry title "Select this line and press any key to view the Grub 2 menu" or whatever, and then construct the menuentry to open another menu (configfile mygrub.cfg).

The second menu entry could have a blank title so it couldn't be seen (but could be selected if the user cursored down and pressed ENTER). You would set this entry as the default one to boot after the desired timeout.

This first menu would have to be a custom entry, although the second could be the standard menu generated by Grub. You could update the real Grub 2 menu, if it was called mygrub.cfg, by running "sudo grub-mkconfig -o mygrub.cfg"

You would have a few problems with grub/kernel updates that would overwrite your custom 'grub.cfg' unless you disable the update-grub command entirely or redirect it to act on 'mygrub.cfg'.

I won't research the specifics since I'm not even sure this is what you are envisioning.

[jwestbury]

That's an interesting approach. Thanks for the idea -- I'll give it a shot.

Updates won't really be an issue -- the primary boot option is going to be Windows, and the second boot option is going to be Ubuntu, in the form of Turnkey Core (so, console only), which is going to exist solely to restore an image of the original Windows configuration. So, it won't be running, and when it does, it will immediately run a script to restore an image, then prompt the user to reboot. Unless they send a sigint, they'll never even see that Ubuntu exists.

So, my menu entry would look something like this?

menuentry "Title goes here" {
    configfile (hdx,y)/boot/grub/othergrub.cfg
}

[drs305]

That's an interesting approach. Thanks for the idea -- I'll give it a shot.
...
So, my menu entry would look something like this?

menuentry "Title goes here" {
    configfile (hdx,y)/boot/grub/othergrub.cfg
}

Yes, but add a second entry for the one you want as the default to boot after a time period if no action is taken. You can leave the title blank ( "" ) so the user won't see it, although it would be available if the user moved the cursor to the blank line.

If that concerns you, you could take it a step further and add password protection. Here is a link to a thread I wrote about passwords:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1369019

[jwestbury]

Okay, so, there's actually another method which your response put me on to. The original issue is that the splash screen wouldn't show until I pressed a key, which kind of defeated my purpose for it.

However, there's an easy solution for that, as it turns out.

I now have the following menuentries:

in /boot/grub/grub.cfg:

menuentry "Other menu" {
    configfile (hd0,1)/boot/grub/othergrub.cfg
}

in /boot/grub/othergrub.cfg:

menuentry "Microsoft Windows XP Professional" {
    Windows stuff here
}

menuentry "Recovery mode" {
    Linux stuff here
}

For the grub.cfg, both timeouts are set to 0, and it defaults to, obviously, menu selection 1.

For othergrub.cfg, there is a hidden timeout of 6, defaulting to Windows XP.

I'm not sure exactly why, but when othergrub.cfg is loaded by grub.cfg, the splash screen -- which tells the user to hold shift -- comes up fine. It's kind of a funky workaround, but it works.

So, if anyone else ever runs into the same problem, there you go!

[Edit: Thanks, drs305!]

[dc_wmj2]

> sudo apt-get install ncurses-hexedit

> cp /boot/grub/normal.mod /tmp

> hexeditor /tmp/normal.mod
/-------------------------------
0000D740 6E 6D 65 6E 74 00 47 4E 55 20 47 52 55 42 20 20 nment.GNU GRUB
0000D750 76 65 72 73 69 6F 6E 20 25 73 00 31 2E 39 39 2D version %s.1.99-
0000D760 31 32 75 62 75 6E 74 75 35 00 00 3E 00 67 72 75 12ubuntu5..>.gru
---------------------------/

I tried editing the normal.mod-file like this - and changing the title works perfectly for me.
But how do I insert some new-lines into grub, so that the whole box will move down? My background-image has a title and the grub-box is covering it.
I tried inserting the Hex-Codes 0A (for \n) and 0D (for Enter) but no success. The title just got left-aligned afterwards.

Also searching for the Hex-Combination DAC4 (to get the upper-left-corner of the box) did return a result. However, new-lines didn't cause an effect at all.
How can I move the whole menu down a few lines? In a 2nd attempt DAC4 was not in the file - maybe it wasn't the addres of the box.

[drs305]

How can I move the whole menu down a few lines? In a 2nd attempt DAC4 was not in the file - maybe it wasn't the addres of the box.

I know the Grub 2 menu location was originally hard coded and don't know if it's changed. You appear to know a lot more about editing the code than I do. All I know how to do is modify the background image to accommodate the menu structure.

Good luck with your endeavor. If you find an answer please share it with us.