Changing Grub Default Boot - [ Solved ]

[AZgl1500]

Well, I have done this 3 times, and LMDE 3 is continuing to be the default boot.
It is listed in position 0 and 18.3 Cinnamon is in line #6 and yes, I counted 0,1,2,3,4,5,6

this is what Grub looks like right now, but it is not being honored.

Code: Select all

#   info -f grub -n 'Simple configuration'

GRUB_DEFAULT=6
# force it to show
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=5
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
#

I made the changes with
gksudo xed /etc/default/grub
saved the changes, exited the editor

then did sudo update-grub to no avail.

any ideas what is happening here?

only one comment:
during the install of LMDE3, when it finished the install, instead of the normal " install is done, hit <enter >, the screen just went back to the normal Live Session desktop with the Install Icon disk on it.

so, I closed the live session out normally, then booted up 18.3 and did the sudo update-grub and rebooted.
LMDE booted instead of 18.3

I have tried 3 times, to make it boot 18.3 as the default....

[kc1di]

Hi,
What I suspect happened is that grub did not get installed properly in your cinnamon install and the grub you are using is the old LMDE grub and if that is the case you will have to make the changes in the lmde grub not the new cinnamon grub. I may be wrong but that's what it sounds like has happened.
good luck.
you might want to try to reinstall grub this site can help with that:
https://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/245

[Valsodar]

Why don't you try grub-customizer? It's a GUI program to edit grub and you can easily choose which OS you want as default. I'm with 18.3 as well (dual boot with Windows) and grub-customizer has helped me a lot. You can get it from Synaptic.

But you should know it only works for legacy grub. For grub2 it won't change anything.

[Pjotr]

LMDE has the dominant Grub now?

Don't use Grub Customizer, by the way:
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... Customizer
(item 7, right column)

[AZgl1500]

Hi,
What I suspect happened is that grub did not get installed properly in your cinnamon install and the grub you are using is the old LMDE grub and if that is the case you will have to make the changes in the lmde grub not the new cinnamon grub. I may be wrong but that's what it sounds like has happened.
good luck.
you might want to try to reinstall grub this site can help with that:
https://community.linuxmint.com/tutorial/view/245

I booted up the 18.3 Cinnamon ISO FOB......

I read all the posts and decided against the one that had a warning on it.... the GUI method.


did it manually, must have read it over 6 times, and left Terminal setting with this on the screen for the longest:
Probably an hour..... and went over the instructions again and triplicate..... sure didn't want to destroy grub



Finally pulled up my Big Boy panties and hit enter and saw this, at first was concerned about the 'aufs' which I still don't know what is.... but the i386 made me feel better.



Power off, then ON again and this showed up.... Success!




back where it all was before LMDE screwed it all up. Forgot to mention the LMDE grub menu is a very faint blue color, damn near impossible to read. Wish I had taken a picture of that... it showed LMDE in line 0 at the top and 18.3 in line 6 which is totally wrong.

All is well, that ends well, and I thank every one for their input.
That is what makes this forum so great.

[rui no onna]

Note, unless you skip installing the bootloader, your newly installed distro will usually take control of grub.

sudo update-grub only updates /boot/grub/grub.cfg. It's sudo grub-install that tells the computer where the boot loader/manager is.

You don't really need the live CD in order to fix. You could've just booted into your Mint 18.3 install and ran sudo update-grub (so it adds LMDE or whatever new distro you installed to the menu) followed by sudo grub-install (so Mint 18.3 would take control of grub again).

[AZgl1500]

Note, unless you skip installing the bootloader, your newly installed distro will usually take control of grub.

sudo update-grub only updates /boot/grub/grub.cfg. It's sudo grub-install that tells the computer where the boot loader/manager is.

You don't really need the live CD in order to fix. You could've just booted into your Mint 18.3 install and ran sudo update-grub (so it adds LMDE or whatever new distro you installed to the menu) followed by sudo grub-install (so Mint 18.3 would take control of grub again).

ah ha!

I will append this to my Notebook..... thank you

Let me ask this then:
IF, when LMDE3 finished the install and asked me to hit <enter> to continue,

IF, I had just did a Terminal shutdown 0 instead and aborted the Grub install, I could have done as you said here,
and all would have remained normal..... my LMDE3 is on a spare partition that I use for experiments, I don't ever want it to be the 1st boot item.

[kc1di]

Glad it got sorted

[rui no onna]

ah ha!

I will append this to my Notebook..... thank you

Let me ask this then:
IF, when LMDE3 finished the install and asked me to hit <enter> to continue,

IF, I had just did a Terminal shutdown 0 instead and aborted the Grub install, I could have done as you said here,
and all would have remained normal..... my LMDE3 is on a spare partition that I use for experiments, I don't ever want it to be the 1st boot item.

By the time it asked you to Continue Testing or Restart, I believe LMDE has already installed grub. At least it was that way with my other Mint installs. I haven't actually tried installing LMDE yet. I believe the only way to avoid installing the LMDE bootloader to /dev/sda is by using ubiquity -b to run the installer or if you have multiple hard drives, tell it to install the bootloader someplace other than your actual boot drive (I have mine pointed to an HDD in external USB 3.0 enclosure for my test distros).

[Valsodar]

Don't use Grub Customizer, by the way:
https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... Customizer
(item 7, right column)

That's all BS. Considering what other BS that guy writes a few lines below item 7, I wouldn't trust him at all. He obviously doesn't know the difference between "uninstall" from the menu and "apt autoremove".

[Pierre]

That's the downside of the complexity it adds, which it what I've found also,
when I'd also used that program - - it Did Seem to make a Mess of the Grub Menu.

and it was messy to clean up, as well.

[jimallyn]

That's all BS. Considering what other BS that guy writes a few lines below item 7, I wouldn't trust him at all.

There are a lot of people here, including myself, who would disagree with you. That guy does know what he's talking about, his advice is good, and all the experts here will tell you that.

[AZgl1500]

That's all BS. Considering what other BS that guy writes a few lines below item 7, I wouldn't trust him at all.

There are a lot of people here, including myself, who would disagree with you. That guy does know what he's talking about, his advice is good, and all the experts here will tell you that.

My reading on it gave me the idea that it was adding a layer of complexity to the Grub menu system, and when I read that removing the Optimizer did NOT remove the added complexity, I voted "No" in even attempting to use it.

I prefer to stick with the basics, and learn how to manage "grub" or whatever else it is that I meet up with while learning Linux.

I feel that the simple structure that resulted, with the Grub Menu returning to exactly like it was before LMDE-3 messed it up, proves that the direct approach was best.

A simple two step Terminal command set fixed my problem.
Why add additional layers of complexity to that?

[jimallyn]

My reading on it gave me the idea that it was adding a layer of complexity to the Grub menu system

Not just a layer of complexity, more like a mountain of complexity. I had been using Grub Customizer on my computers and had no problems with it until I was trying to figure out how to add the PLOP boot system to the boot menu for my brother. I was never able to undo the mess that GC had made of Grub, and wound up having to boot from a SuperGrub2 CD and booting into Mint from there. I have been using my computer that way for months, but it will be fixed soon when I install a new version of Mint on a new hard drive. Won't use GC anymore.

[Valsodar]

There are a lot of people here, including myself, who would disagree with you. That guy does know what he's talking about, his advice is good, and all the experts here will tell you that.

It's their right to disagree. Maybe if you make the mistake to install all the grubs in the same place, that could create a complicated situation. But I've learned not to trust everything I read. I could give you an example for the latter but we'd go offtopic, if I did.
And if that guy did know the difference between "uninstall" from the menu and apt autoremove, he would know that the first removes only the program itself (even if it's a default one that comes with Mint installation) and autoremove removes the program AND all of its dependencies which could create the problem he's talking about in item 9.

[MrEen]

I think you've completely misunderstood what he meant by

For uninstalling Grub Customizer after using it, does not remove its changes.

When you uninstall GC, it does not put your grub back to how it was before using it.

[Valsodar]

I think you've completely misunderstood what he meant by

Oh, I understood him very well. And I know that even without him telling me that. The simple logic suggests that the changes won't be undone by uninstalling GC. It's like editing a file with gedit and saving it. Removing gedit won't undo the changes in the saved file. Simple.
But in my case GC does the job. Dual boot with Windows 7, Windows is on the SSD, Mint is on a hard disk. Boot sector of Windows 7 is inside Windows partition (found a way to trick it not to create the boot partition), Linux grub is inside the Linux file system. Booting is as simple as either choosing the OS from grub menu or selecting the corresponding storage device from UEFI's boot menu (F11). Nothing is complicated or corrupted, even with using GC.
Bottom line: there's no way this guy could convince me GC screws things up, especially without giving any concrete evidence for that.

[MrEen]

Bottom line: there's no way this guy could convince me GC screws things up, especially without giving any concrete evidence for that.

Well, you could search the forum, or read some of the posts (eg. jimallyn) in this thread. There's plenty of evidence.

[Sir Charles]

Bottom line: there's no way this guy could convince me GC screws things up, especially without giving any concrete evidence for that.

Ahh, Grub Customizer haunting the forums again

If you want and can ignore 95% of the posts in this thread, there are a few posts from "Daniel" the developer of the tool in his first and, until now, last appearance on these forums discussing this "cherished subject".

[AZgl1500]

OMG,
"only" added 377 lines of code to do what Grub does in a precious few at most.

My two line fix seems to be a bit simpler

Glad to have you guys around to guide me thru the forest, the trees get in the way sometimes.