[SOLVED]How Can I Display the Grub Menu?

[banjo]

I know that this is a real Noob question, but it still has me puzzled. I just installed Mint 18.1 on my single boot system. Mint 18.1 is the only OS installed on the system. When I installed Mint I mostly accepted the defaults for the installation.

The system boots silently and runs fine, but I never see the Grub menu. I looked in /boot/grub/grub.cfg, and there are numerous menu items, including one for the old Linux 4.4.0-53-generic kernel that I upgraded to .83. If I ever have to boot into (recovery mode) or an older kernel I don't know how I would do that.

Here is what I have tried:

I tapped the left Shift key while booting, and the system blew by the menu and booted silently anyway.

I tapped on the Esc key while booting, and the system booted to the grub> command line. That doesn't help me much.

What am I missing? I must be doing it wrong. I thought I understood this. How can I display the Grub menu?

Thanks,
Banjo
(_)=='=~

[kc1di]

Hello banjo and Welcome to Linux Mint.
Unfortunately there is no setting to do that in Mint. There should be. You can edit the /etc/default/grub file but that's not self explanatory.
I use Grub-Customizer found here you can add the ppa and install it through Synaptic or terminal.
BUT BE VERY CAREFUL IN IT'S USE. CAUSE YOU CAN BORK YOUR BOOT TOO.
Here's the link:
http://ubuntuhandbook.org/index.php/201 ... 16-04-lts/

once installed you can find a check box on the general settings tab that says show grub menu.

Good luck , Be careful.
P.S. on the Appearance tab you can also change grub background picture and fonts etc.

[Cosmo.]

It is known, that for some users the shift-key does not work for displaying the grub menu, but the ESC key should work. Getting the commandline with the ESC key is strange; this should be reached with the c key in the opened grub menu.

For the moment do this:
When you are in the system open a terminal and enter

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gksudo xed /etc/default/grub

Now add in the upper part a new line and enter

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GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=menu

Save it and go back into the terminal and enter

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sudo update-grub

You should see the grub menu now without interaction.

[banjo]

Thanks for the pointers. I will look into these ideas. I did look into /etc/default/grub, but I did not know what to change.

If I manage to fix this without borking my boot I will report back with what I did.

Thanks,
Banjo
(_)=='=~

[kc1di]

Either way will work. you'll be fine.

[banjo]

I got the system to boot showing the menu. Thanks to the help here telling me where to look and some documents I found, there was a very simple fix for the problem. Here are some links to my resources.

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2/Setup

The last document had a direct answer for my question. The answer was to edit /etc/default/grub and then....

"Place a comment symbol (#) in front of the GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT entry"

So I changed

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# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
# For full documentation of the options in this file, see:
#   info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

to

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# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
# For full documentation of the options in this file, see:
#   info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

a one character change to the file. Then I ran update-grub and rebooted.

The boot menu shows up for 10 seconds with the default image highlighted.

menu-IMG_0694.jpg

The white box at the top has obscured the entry "Linux Mint 18.1 KDE 64-bit"

If I use the down arrow to select the second option and type the Enter key, I see the entire menu.

menu-IMG_0693.jpg

This adds 10 seconds to my boot, but I do feel better that I can grab a recovery image if I have to. I never got the Shift key or the Esc key to work during the boot. Strange.

Thanks to all for the help.
Banjo
(_)=='=~

[Royi]

@banjo,
The single # you added (Before GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0) is exactly the default for Linux Mint 18.2 (At least that what I got out of the box).
In Linux Mint 18.3 they uncommented it by default.

[banjo]

That is an interesting toggle. Indecision is a terrible thing.... or not... or maybe yes..... not sure......

I now have more than a screen full of kernels in the grub menu. I cannot remember how to remove some of them from the list. I doubt that I need all of them in there.

Banjo
(_)=='=~