How to have a custom Grub2 menu that is maintenance free

[von Stalhein]

Thanks!

Yep - I remember the Plymouth one as being coloured purple from I don't know how many distros ago so it didn't worry me as it was familiar.

As I said above, in my last setup, the next screen after selecting Ubuntu had the same background as the initial GRUB screen, with the login box at the bottom RHS of the screen & the usual symbol to select whatever other desktops I had installed etc.

My uncertain memory is that I found a tute that detailed how to do that - I will do some search-engineing and report back.

[Cavsfan]

Thanks!

Yep - I remember the Plymouth one as being coloured purple from I don't know how many distros ago so it didn't worry me as it was familiar.

As I said above, in my last setup, the next screen after selecting Ubuntu had the same background as the initial GRUB screen, with the login box at the bottom RHS of the screen & the usual symbol to select whatever other desktops I had installed etc.

My uncertain memory is that I found a tute that detailed how to do that - I will do some search-engineering and report back.

You're welcome! Yeah I do a lot of research as well.

I've had my grub screen, logon screen and background all the same before too.

Let me know what you find and If I can help I will.

[Cavsfan]

Nothing changed with Ubuntu 22.04.



My custom menu file:

#!/bin/sh
echo 1>&2 "Adding Arch Linux, Fedora 35 (Thirty Five), Xubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish LTS and Windows 10"
exec tail -n +4 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.
menuentry 'Arch Linux' {
    search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 688D-126B
    linux  /vmlinuz-linux root=UUID=bbca28b2-503e-4dc8-9850-c54bd0492da8 rw loglevel=3 quiet
    initrd /intel-ucode.img /initramfs-linux.img
}
menuentry 'Arch Linux (fallback kernel)' {
    search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 688D-126B
    linux  /vmlinuz-linux root=UUID=bbca28b2-503e-4dc8-9850-c54bd0492da8 rw loglevel=3 quiet
    initrd /initramfs-linux-fallback.img
}
menuentry 'Fedora 35 (Thirty Five)' {
    search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 88b17257-fd5e-4261-96d6-fc6cef32254f
    linux  /boot/vmlinuz root=UUID=88b17257-fd5e-4261-96d6-fc6cef32254f ro rd.driver.blacklist=nouveau modprobe.blacklist=nouveau nvidia-drm.modeset=1 resume=UUID=b564ed75-b9ee-410f-9f87-04afc30a0ff4 rhgb quiet LANG=en_US.UTF-8
    initrd /boot/initrd.img
}
menuentry 'Xubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish LTS' {
    search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 7905894e-6202-4adb-bdf5-a43aaa82af6b
    linux    /boot/vmlinuz root=UUID=7905894e-6202-4adb-bdf5-a43aaa82af6b ro quiet splash
    initrd    /boot/initrd.img
}
menuentry 'Xubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish LTS (recovery mode)' {
        search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 7905894e-6202-4adb-bdf5-a43aaa82af6b
        linux  /boot/vmlinuz root=UUID=7905894e-6202-4adb-bdf5-a43aaa82af6b ro recovery nomodeset
        initrd /boot/initrd.img
}
menuentry 'Windows 10' {
    set root='hd2,gpt1'
    search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 688D-126B
    chainloader /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
}

[Cavsfan]

I found a more concise way to list the bootable menu lines:

grep -e "menuentry " -e "submenu" /boot/grub/grub.cfg | sed 's/^[ \t]*//' | cut -d "'" -f2,2 | nl --starting-line-number=0

cavsfan@Jammy-Jellyfish:~$ grep -e "menuentry " -e "submenu" /boot/grub/grub.cfg | sed 's/^[ \t]*//' | cut -d "'" -f2,2 | nl --starting-line-number=0
     0    Arch Linux
     1    Arch Linux (fallback kernel)
     2    Fedora 35 (Thirty Five)
     3    Xubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish LTS
     4    Xubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish LTS (recovery mode)
     5    Windows 10

Just the menu line numbers and what the systems names have been set to.

[Cavsfan]

I found a more concise way to list the bootable menu lines:

grep -e "menuentry " -e "submenu" /boot/grub/grub.cfg | sed 's/^[ \t]*//' | cut -d "'" -f2,2 | nl --starting-line-number=0

cavsfan@Jammy-Jellyfish:~$ grep -e "menuentry " -e "submenu" /boot/grub/grub.cfg | sed 's/^[ \t]*//' | cut -d "'" -f2,2 | nl --starting-line-number=0
     0    Arch Linux
     1    Arch Linux (fallback kernel)
     2    Fedora 35 (Thirty Five)
     3    Xubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish LTS
     4    Xubuntu 22.04 Jammy Jellyfish LTS (recovery mode)
     5    Windows 10

Just the menu line numbers and what the systems names have been set to.

I take that back; this is another decent way to display to menu lines but, the one in the Wiki is good too.

[Cavsfan]

great work keep going tanks for the post!

Sorry this is a little late.
Thank you! Glad to help.

[von Stalhein]

Hey @Cavsfan - send me away if this is the wrong spot!

I had a glitch today & had to re-set Win11.
There was some reordering of disks as I had to boot from a USB to get to the repair area.

I've changed the disk boot order back to the original and I can get into Ubuntu by holding F11 (MSI board & BIOS) and selecting the Ubuntu which then boots to the GRUB menu.
The 2 options at that juncture are Win11 & Ubuntu, and they both reference the same disk, which didn't worry me as ostensibly it is the Win disk and I thought that's where the bootloader resided anyway (UEFI).

So, I thought running the old

sudo update-grub

would restore things but it doesn't.

I assume the re-set has overwritten the bootloader - can you link me to a fix please or point me to the Path of Solutions?

[oldfred]

I suggest starting a new thread, and post link to summary report from Boot-Repair.
Please copy & paste the pastebin link to the BootInfo summary report ( do not post report), do not run the auto fix till reviewed.Lets see details, use ppa version with your USB installer (2nd option) or any working install, not Boot-Repair ISO
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot-Repair

New grub 2.06 turns os-prober off by default. You can manually turn it back on temporally and then turn it back off. There is some security issue with trying to mount & scan every partition for operating systems.

Since this thread is about maintenance free, I would copy Windows UEFI boot stanza into 40_custom. And include 40_custom in you normal backups. I copy mine into /home so backup of /home includes it.

Windows fast start up must be off, otherwise grub will not see it to add to menu, nor then boot it.
Or if UEFI Secure boot is on, grub does not pass security key to Windows so that does not work either.
Windows may turn those settings on with updates or run UEFI update that resets UEFI to defaults. (more with most laptops).

[von Stalhein]

Thanks Oldfred,will do - sorry for the clog.

[Cavsfan]

Yes, thanks Fred!