Linux Mint Forums

Hi,
I just set-up Mint 8 as a dual boot with Windows XP for my neighbor. At boot-up, I get the selection screen. Win XP is at the bottom. I would like to make Win XP the default choice to start. Or can I make the boot up process stop at the choices screen, and wait for input?

Is this possible? If so, how?

Thanks,
Mike

Mike, you need to edit the file /etc/default/grub as root. You can do this by pressing ALT+F2 then typing gksu gedit /etc/default/grub and clicking Run.

You need to know the relative position of the entry for Windows starting from zero. On my system I have 2 entries for mint and 2 for memtest, so if I had windows it would be at position 4. Then in gedit, change the 0 on the line GRUB_DEFAULT=0 to the position of XP. I believe you can also put saved instead of a number to have grub default to the last entry you chose on the previous boot.

For an indefinite menu, change the number on the line grub_timeout= to -1.

Save the file and exit gedit, then open a terminal and enter sudo update-grub. Next time you reboot your changes should be in place.

For an indefinite menu, change the number on the line grub_timeout= to -1.

I tried this first, but it continues to have the 10 second timer. Any thoughts?

Mike

hansencomputers wrote:I tried this first, but it continues to have the 10 second timer

Did you edit the /etc/default/grub file? Did you edit it as root, ie. sudo/gksu? Did you run sudo update-grub in a terminal afterwards? Did you get any errors?

Sorry, I forgot the Grub update part of the process.


problem solved