Does anyone else hate Grub2?

[jbrown96]

I've upgraded to Karmic, and all I can say is that Grub2 is a huge PITA. Here were my first experiences with it.
Installed on my laptop, but I couldn't get the provided nvidia drivers to work. No problem, I'll get them directly from nvidia and install them. Everything goes fine, and I reboot. Unfortunately, something didn't work, and my system freezes on boot. No problem, I'll just boot in single user mode, which will keep X.org from loading. Wait, where's my grub prompt. Oooo, grub2 doesn't give you the menu unless there are multiple kernels or OSes on your machine. Seriously, there's no way I can change my boot parameters without enabling the grub menu, but I can't do that because my system won't boot??? I'm literally about to tear my computer apart at this point. Stuff like this drove me to Linux. I want my machine to do what I say when I say it, but grub2 has decided that I don't get to tell it how to boot.
So get my LiveCD, and boot that up. There's no /boot/grub/menu.lst file. Instead there several configuration files. On grub1 all I had to do to get a menu was, change hiddenmenu to #hiddenmenu. Of course there's nothing like that. I think GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=false this is the line that I need to change, but I'm not sure, so I change three different lines. Now I need to run update-grub just so it will load these changes??? Are you mad! And of course I can't figure out how to run this command from a LiveCD because it doesn't know where grub2 is.
This did me the menu that I needed, and I was able to fix my system very easily once I got to the terminal.
I have looked at grub since, and most of the changes make no sense to me. Instead of having all the menu items in a single file (a la /boot/grub/menu.lst), they have been moved to their own files. They are so complicated and filled with code that I can't even begin to understand them. I guess you wold add entries to /etc/grub.d/40_custom file. Seriously WTF! Why is this so complicated. There's no sample entries in here like grub1. That's really helpful; if you are adding another Linux system you can reference your current Linux entries and get an idea of the format, and it works for Windows as well because there is a Windows example in /boot/grub/menu.lst, but of course that has been eliminated in grub2.

I understand why Ubuntu was hamstringed into switching to grub2; the grub developers wouldn't add support for ext4 to grub1. I just don't understand why it's so needlessly complicated. I was so frustrated trying to do something that, in the past, took adding a single character to a well-known file. The developers completely failed at making it easy to use. I was trying to help a user install Windows alongside Ubuntu the other day. I flatly told him to install windows first because grub2 is too difficult to add an entry for windows. That's completely unacceptable. Grub2 is the new newCoke.

[Sealbhach]

I wonder what happened to Keep It Simple, Stupid.

.

[coolbrook]

I don't hate it per se. It did drop kick my Puppy partition, but I can wait for the the kinks to be ironed out.

[rajeev1204]

I dislike it very much too.

I have helped atleast 10 people on irc with grub problems with four simple steps from a live cd

sudo grub

find /boot/grub/stage1

root (hdx,y)

setup (hdx)

But with karmic around the corner and many many new users,i dont think i can do that so easy.



rajeev

[anaconda]

yeah.. it is a PITA.

The problem I am having with it is that 1 out of 3 times grub2 wont even boot the system. It just hangs.

[AlexanderDGreat]

Hi can anyone help me? I'm using an Adaptec SCSI 29320 Hardware RAID with 2 Seagate 37gb Cheetah as Raid1 configuration. I used an alternate cd Karmic Koala to install. I have these partitions: /boot /swap / /home - but when I reach the installation of GRUB, it won't install!

Now I reboot, then I'm left with a blank screen. My question is, why won't GRUB install? Now, I've a broken OS, I can't get any work done. I can't install Karmic. I'm in agony and confused.

PS I used Jaunty before, and alternate install CD worked without errors.

[dragos240]

I resent it. Grub legacy forever.

[ronnielsen1]

Where is the improvement? Going with Grub2 was the stupidest choice Ubuntu has made yet in my opinion. Now the systems I make have to be "explained" to get around the shortcoming of no saved default for users who might not want to boot into Linux every time. Grub2 is a piece of junk, the new features aren't needed, the added complexity is stupid, and I for one would have preferred to just stay with the original grub.

Excellently said.

[ronnielsen1]

http://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question...2111244AACIy8l

Linux ubuntu help ...i want get rid of grub 2 and replace it with just the old grub how do i do this ?

[drs305]

For others that may face similar situations:

Wait, where's my grub prompt. Oooo, grub2 doesn't give you the menu unless there are multiple kernels or OSes on your machine.

Hold down the SHIFT key and the menu will appear.

There's no /boot/grub/menu.lst file.

It's been replaced by /boot/grub/grub.cfg but the file you edit is mainly /etc/default/grub

Instead there several configuration files. On grub1 all I had to do to get a menu was, change hiddenmenu to #hiddenmenu. Of course there's nothing like that. I think GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=false this is the line that I need to change, but I'm not sure, so I change three different lines.

/etc/defalt/grub >> Put a comment in front of this line:
# GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0

Now I need to run update-grub just so it will load these changes??? Are you mad!

# 1 Yes; #2 I hope not.

Instead of having all the menu items in a single file (a la /boot/grub/menu.lst), they have been moved to their own files. They are so complicated and filled with code that I can't even begin to understand them.

The scripts are there for those that need or want them. By and large, most users can get by on just editing two files:
/etc/default/grub = Basic settings
/etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme = splash images

I truly do understand the frustration. For you, there wasn't a lot of documentation available. Today there are a lot of great posts and other sources put together by volunteers to make the transition less painful for others.

Most of of your experiences could have been made much less difficult had these been available when you transitioned. I offer them here to help those who follow:

Grub2 - help.ubuntu.com

Grub 2 Basics

Grub 2 Introduction

Illustrated Dual Boot Site (Herman)

Grub 2 - A Guide for Users