How to enable boot timeout in Grub2

grub

I'm am trying to enable the boot timeout selection in grub2 on Ubuntu 9.10.

I modified /etc/default/grub:

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

and ran update-grub, but I still do not have a boot timeout counter. What else can you do to enable this?

Best Answer

Answer taken from http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1373965

at the end of your /etc/grub.d/00_header file, comment out the if condition except for the regular set timeout line like this:

#if [ \${recordfail} = 1 ]; then
#  set timeout=-1
#else
  set timeout=${GRUB_TIMEOUT}
#fi

run update-grub to regenerate the grub.cfg with the new settings:

sudo update-grub

reboot, now it should always boot the default option after the timeout, even if the previous boot failed.

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Linux – Boot GRUB2 to GRUB or GRUB2 on another disk

Since I figured this out yesterday I may as well point the answer.

To go from GRUB2 to another MBR you need to do the following

menuentry "Other Disk" {
    insmod part_msdos
    set root='(hd1)'
    drivemap -s hd0 hd1
    chainloader (hd1)+1
}

That is booting my GRUB2 into GRUB managed by OpenSUSE. hd1 could be swapped for any other drive or partition. The drivemap is needed so the other GRUB will find the partitions on hd1 it needs, since the other GRUB (1) will treat the other disk as hd0. To boot off a partition you would change (hd1) to (hd1,2) or whatever partition you want, note the drivemap would omit the partition.

GRUB2 -> GRUB2 should be the same way, though I don't have an install to test this. The config file might work for GRUB2->GRUB2, but I didn't test that either since I'm going form GRUB2 -> GRUB

Linux – GRUB2: /boot as BTRFS subvolume

Yes. Myself successfully moved /boot into the BTRFS system as a subvolume. No special consideration necessary - just don't forget to reinstall grub and rebuild the initramfs.

edit:

Will require running grub2-mkconfig -o /boot/grub2/grub.cfg after every upgrade involving a kernel (linux, memtest, etc) or during/after a fedora upgrade (fedup) as grubby does not support updating grub.cfg on btrfs subvolumes. There is a patch available [#864198 - see attachments] which hasn't been integrated because it's a hack. With kernel-install and BootLoaderSpec, grubby seems to be nearing end-of-life, so I don't find it objectionable.

TLDR:

Requires updating grub.cfg manually every post-kernel upgrade, which is painless unless you've directly edited it.

Best Answer

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