Re: Newbie Grub2 tweaking tool/instructions?

[Bob Morris]

The GRUB experts will address specifics, but I think will likely agree
that an important reason GRUB is primarily about booting kernels is
that for Linux, the user interface---whether commandline or gui---is
not part of the kernel. This is a long and successful architectural
pattern that allows lots of choices for UI management. By-and-large,
once you've configured your desktop, commandline shell, window
manager, etc. etc., pretty much the right thing will happen without
further effort on your part.  All that said, if you are not happy with
the default desktop and window management configuration for the Linux
distribution you use, then you have somewhere between a little and a
lot to learn to tune or replace it, but that will survive any GRUB
issues.

More generally, GRUB is not dedicated to loading only operating
systems, much less operating systems with chosen UIs. Especially if
you end up using GRUB for dual booting, e.g. Windows and Linux on
different disk partitions, you may begin to see some disk utilities
show up in the GRUB menu.
--Bob Morris
using *nix since 1978...

Robert A. Morris

Emeritus Professor  of Computer Science
UMASS-Boston
100 Morrissey Blvd
Boston, MA 02125-3390

IT Staff
Filtered Push Project
Harvard University Herbaria
Harvard University

email: address@hidden
web: http://efg.cs.umb.edu/
web: http://etaxonomy.org/mw/FilteredPush
http://www.cs.umb.edu/~ram
===
The content of this communication is made entirely on my
own behalf and in no way should be deemed to express
official positions of The University of Massachusetts at Boston or
Harvard University.


On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 9:23 AM, Richard Owlett <address@hidden> wrote:
> I'm new to Linux though have been end-user since CPM-80 days [took a much
> too long detour thru Windows].
>
> I've dedicated one machine to experimenting with multiple versions (mostly
> Debian related) installed from that distro's LiveCD.
>
> The combination of the installer and grub2 gives two annoying results:
>   1. The latest install goes to the top of the Grub displayed list of
> choices
>      of which OS to load.
>   2. The content of menu entries is not human friendly - it gives distro and
> kernel
>      version, but not desktop and my keyword for what options I took while
> installing.
>
> What I need:
>   1. newest install to be on bottom of the list
>   2. to be able to create menu entries meaningful to myself
>   3. the menu entries keep my custom entries across multiple additional
> installs
>
> What I'd also like is to not have excess menu entries:
>   1. each install provides a normal and "rescue" entry point. For the
> purpose of
>      _my experiments_, the "rescue" entry is just a line cluttering up the
> menu.
>   2. the Debian install also provide 486 and 686 versions. Only the 486
> version
>      will eventually be relevant on some eventual target machines so I'll
> only want
>      to experiment with that version.
>
> I take it as a given I'm going to have to dedicate a small partition or a
> USB stick for grub's exclusive use.
>
> Are my desires doable? reasonable?
>
> TIA
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Help-grub mailing list
> address@hidden
> https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-grub



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