Grub2 Worms Into Ubuntu (part 1)

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Why Switch, GRUB2 StructureAkkana PeckThursday, February 11, 2010 12:09:49 PMPart I: Configuration OverviewGrub, n. 1. an informal term for a meal 2. a soft thick wormlike larva of certain beetles and other insects 3. GRand Unified Bootloader ...read the rest of this tutorial --> http://linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/6981/1/

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Linux Howto: Cleaning up Your GRUB 2 Menu (part 2)Akkana PeckThursday, February 25, 2010 11:04:38 AMIn the last installment, I showed how to add new entries for your grub2 menu, and gave a few simple examples of entries that work. But that boot menu is long, confusing and ugly. How do you fix it?... read the rest of the tutorial --> http://linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/tutorials/6991/1/

[Cluttermagnet]

I'm reviving this thread because a search of Scot's led me back here. I remember being quite nervous with all the changes that grub 2 brought. Seems my nervousness is justified. I just tried to change the colors in the boot splash screen. It ignored me. I edited it to do blue type on a cyan background, with blue type on a white background for highlight.Your original, excellent reference is here. Using the paragraph titled "Fixing That Ugly Splash Screen", I opened Terminal and did

sudo gedit /etc/grub.d/05_debian_theme

I changed that section to read

set_mono_theme(){  cat << EOFset menu_color_normal=blue/cyanset menu_color_highlight=blue/whiteEOF}

Upon reboot, I am treated to the usual boring white on black splash screen. The author warned that they were still writing and rewriting grub 2 at the time of the article. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. Can anyone suggest why grub 2 has ignored me? BTW I did a recheck of that section of Grub 2 after the reboot, and my edit changes were still there.

Edited April 10, 2011 by Cluttermagnet

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Your guess is as good as mine, Clutter. I don't have G2 running on any system that I own.

[sunrat]

Maybe it's changed since the article was written. Mine looks like this:

set_default_theme(){	# Set the traditional Debian blue theme.	echo "${1}set menu_color_normal=cyan/blue"	echo "${1}set menu_color_highlight=white/blue"}

[V.T. Eric Layton]

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/gr...eme-file-format

[Cluttermagnet]

http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/gr...eme-file-format

I hate to say it, Eric, but that guide is particularly dry and abstract. I was kind of aware of the 3 ways you can specify a color, from having authored a rudimentary HTML4 web page for about 10 years now. But that doesn't address my problem, it's ultimately just some dry examples of syntax. Couldn't these guys anticipate that some folks might have troubles with their creation? Haven't these folks ever heard of examples? It would be so helpful if they would give excerpts of the programming language, as in author Akkana Peck's otherwise excellent article- show some cause and effect? I'm kind of lost. Think I will try a few different Google search phrases and see if I can find some folks who also struggled with this and how they eventually solved it. I knew I was not going to like grub 2. I don't.

set_default_theme(){	# Set the traditional Debian blue theme.	echo "${1}set menu_color_normal=cyan/blue"	echo "${1}set menu_color_highlight=white/blue"}

I don't guess I dare try thie code example above, sunrat. It just looks too different from what I actually found in my grub 2, which looked more like

set_mono_theme(){  cat << EOFset menu_color_normal=blue/cyanset menu_color_highlight=blue/whiteEOF}

but with black/white, of course.

[V.T. Eric Layton]

Man pages are not known for their page-turning suspense. Only a geek can love a man page.

[Urmas]

Hey Clutter:http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1664134

[abarbarian]

These two links may be of use for the cli approach. http://www.webupd8.org/2009/11/customizing...untu-linux.htmlhttp://maketecheasier.com/mastering-grub-2...t=Google+Reader

[Cluttermagnet]

Good deal. All three of the foregoing pages get right to the point and are about the 'how to' that most folks are looking for. 'Cookbook' things for a while, and you get what you need short term. Eventually, you may find yourself wanting to know all the details, and that is where the real manual becomes indispensable. I think that, short term, the manual tends to scare off new Linux converts. Me? I'm not intimidated, but I get impatient pretty fast, especially lately when I'm constantly exhausted and have even gotten sick for a while. Hopefully I'll be feeling more 'robust' as summer comes on...I'll probably try both methods, I'm not CLI averse, not intimidated- but a 'do it for you' GUI-fied program is sure tempting, short term. Thanks, everyine- excellent help, as always. BTW I may have seen what I didn't know about and therefore omitted: I notice that that author is doing a lot of

sudo update-grub2

all the time, whenever he makes changes via CLI. So that is the very first thing I am going to try on this box. Will report back later...

clutter@clutter-desktop:~$ sudo update-grub2[sudo] password for clutter: Generating grub.cfg ...Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-30-genericFound initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-30-genericFound linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.32-24-genericFound initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-2.6.32-24-genericFound memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.binFound Dell Utility Partition on /dev/sda1Found Windows XP Media Center Edition on /dev/sda2doneclutter@clutter-desktop:~$

[Cluttermagnet]

Bingo! Updating grub2 produces the cyan window, blue type, and white highlighting I intended. That'll do me for now, but I intend to try all these methods, and maybe mess with a graphic for the grub splash as well. Just so I can say I've done it...

[Cluttermagnet]

Man pages are not known for their page-turning suspense. Only a geek can love a man page.

...if you want to learn Linux, install Slackware

Yep, true, no doubt. Hey, Eric- I saw something that might be moderately interesting to you and especially to Josh- went to my dentist earlier Monday for a cleaning... When I left, I saw a car in the parking lot with Virginia tags reading "myarch" or was it "myArch"? Anyway the tag has a semi-circle at the right edge that says ".com" so the whole tag says myArch.com. Also says "Internet C@pitol" along the bottom. Spiffy tags. Maybe one of you knows this guy, who knows?I'll have to visit the page, now that I just remembered this.Edit: Oops! My bad. Website has nothing whatever to do with Arch Linux. Toooooooo bad...sorry... Edited April 12, 2011 by Cluttermagnet

[securitybreach]

Yep, true, no doubt. Hey, Eric- I saw something that might be moderately interesting to you and especially to Josh- went to my dentist earlier Monday for a cleaning... When I left, I saw a car in the parking lot with Virginia tags reading "myarch" or was it "myArch"? Anyway the tag has a semi-circle at the right edge that says ".com" so the whole tag says myArch.com. Also says "Internet C@pitol" along the bottom. Spiffy tags. Maybe one of you knows this guy, who knows?I'll have to visit the page, now that I just remembered this.Edit: Oops! My bad. Website has nothing whatever to do with Arch Linux. Toooooooo bad...sorry...

It would of been pretty cool if it did though.

[sunrat]

Bingo! Updating grub2 produces the cyan window, blue type, and white highlighting I intended.

I knew that you need to update-grub to get config changes to stick. Sorry didn't think to mention it.I wonder why Ubuntu uses update-grub2 when every other distro uses update-grub? It's not like grub legacy even had an update command to confuse it with.

[Urmas]

I wonder why Ubuntu uses update-grub2 when every other distro uses update-grub? It's not like grub legacy even had an update command to confuse it with.

Both can be used, actually (10.10 Maverick man pages):

UPDATE-GRUB2(8)												UPDATE-GRUB2(8)NAME	   update-grub2 - stub for update-grubSYNOPSIS	   update-grub2DESCRIPTION	   update-grub2  is  a stub for running update-grub which itself is a stub	   for running grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg to  generate  a  grub2	   config file.SEE ALSO	   update-grub(8),grub-mkconfig(8)								  April 2009				   UPDATE-GRUB2(8)

UPDATE-GRUB(8)												  UPDATE-GRUB(8)NAME	   update-grub - stub for grub-mkconfigSYNOPSIS	   update-grubDESCRIPTION	   update-grub  is a stub for running grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg	   to generate a grub2 config file.SEE ALSO	   grub-mkconfig(8)								  April 2009					UPDATE-GRUB(8)

[BillD]

Both can be used, actually (10.10 Maverick man pages)

Yes, I have been using

sudo update-grub

; I did not even know there was an update-grub2 . . .Incidentally, Akkana Peck is the author of "Beginning GIMP" which is a mediocre book I got sight unseen from Amazon several years ago, when I could not figure out GIMP. It is acceptable if you have never used a photo editing program and start at page 1 and work your way though it, but it is utterly useless if you want to find something in the index; for example the index does not even have a listing for "clone (stamp or tool)" despite the fact that the "toolbox" has the clone stamp clearly visible and it works about the same as it does in other photo editing software.Bill

Edited April 13, 2011 by BillD

[Cluttermagnet]

Just an update- I finally got around to installing Grub Customizer on Lucid 10.04, and it does the job for me just fine. Initially, I just used it to change text and highlight text colors. Later I selected a background image from among that stock set of grub images that you can download. I went with Lake_mapourika_NZ.tga.Heres the link previously discussed: Mastering Grub 2 the Easy Way.I was inspired by that example grub2 boot screen, and decided to make that one mine, for now. I also used that graphic as my Desktop, so the boot process looks a little more seamless.BTW that excellent 'how to' page had instructions on how to do it command line style, but when I actually compared my code to the example code, there were enough significant differences to completely put me off. This is programming language, and you must have your syntax just right if you're going to mess with that. I wasn't sure how to do it in my particular case, so I just backed off. OTOH I am doing plenty of things by command line lately, especially a lot of apt-get install commands.I noticed that Terminal accepted

sudo update-grub

as readily as the grub2 alternative.

[securitybreach]

Very cool Clutter :thumbsup:Do you have a screenshot of your setup?

[Cluttermagnet]

Uhhh- dumb question for the day: how do you take a screenshot of a boot screen? I thought that key only worked in the context of a fully loaded OS. Not so? Does the PrtScn key work out of a more basic BIOS environment?

Very cool Clutter :thumbsup:Do you have a screenshot of your setup?

I have a screen shot of my desktop, FWIW. Will put it up if anyone is interested. But you can get a good sense of it from the article linked above- which shows the guy's boot screen and the same pretty photo of a lake in NZ.About the only difference between my and his boot screen is that I chose maroon for regular letters and a kind of yucky dayglo green for highlight text. I know, "eeeuwww!" But I was going for contrast and visibility. Black letters that can look good against blue sky can get lost when green treelines are the background. Edited June 16, 2011 by Cluttermagnet

[securitybreach]

I do not think you can take a screeenshot of your grub screen but I thought you said you created a custom Grub2 image so I was just curious. The grub images should be located in the /usr/share/images/grub/ directory.

[sunrat]

The only way I know to get a screenshot of GRUB is to run the OS in VBox or a similar VM. Or use a camera.

[securitybreach]

The only way I know to get a screenshot of GRUB is to run the OS in VBox or a similar VM. Or use a camera.

Agreed, that is the only way I know of.

[Cluttermagnet]

I do not think you can take a screeenshot of your grub screen but I thought you said you created a custom Grub2 image so I was just curious. The grub images should be located in the /usr/share/images/grub/ directory.

Nope, it's just a stock image. That same article referenced above gives the command line to download a set of photos to that grub images directory:

sudo apt-get install grub2-splashimages

That's what I did. I was inspired by the look of the guy's image in his boot screen- I just made mine look like his.I wish I had a better camera, then I'd actually attempt to capture some of my own scenes for custom images.Not in the budget this year. I just spent some bucks on a used Tektronix oscilloscope. Maybe I'll capture something there-with my cheap old Fuji 1.3 megapixel/fixed focus (no optical zoom).

[burninbush]

Not in the budget this year. I just spent some bucks on a used Tektronix oscilloscope. >cluttermagnet+++++++++++++Great ... just yesterday I had occasion to turn on my 40-year-old Tek 453 scope, and it came right up as it always has through all these years. I call it my wonder tool. Cost me $2k in 1971 dollars, but I've never had a single moment of regret about buying it. It has never had one least thing go wrong in all this time, not even an indicator bulb or a fuse. Still bright, still has sharp focus. I wonder every time I turn it on what I'll do on the day it doesn't work. Then on a whim I looked on ebay, and see a bunch of 453's for sale at tremendous good prices, so there's the answer: when it quits I'll buy another one, used. Just a passing aside -- I love my Tek scope.

[Cluttermagnet]

I got a used 100MHz 465B pretty reasonably on Ebay. Tek makes great scopes, has for years. My old 50MHz Tek 546 vacuum tube boat anchor had bit the dust some years back- probably HV supply issues. I've revived my interest in home building recently, and needed a good scope.

Not in the budget this year. I just spent some bucks on a used Tektronix oscilloscope. >cluttermagnet+++++++++++++Great ... just yesterday I had occasion to turn on my 40-year-old Tek 453 scope, and it came right up as it always has through all these years. I call it my wonder tool. Cost me $2k in 1971 dollars, but I've never had a single moment of regret about buying it. It has never had one least thing go wrong in all this time, not even an indicator bulb or a fuse. Still bright, still has sharp focus. I wonder every time I turn it on what I'll do on the day it doesn't work. Then on a whim I looked on ebay, and see a bunch of 453's for sale at tremendous good prices, so there's the answer: when it quits I'll buy another one, used. Just a passing aside -- I love my Tek scope.

[jolphil]

I got a used 100MHz 465B pretty reasonably on Ebay. Tek makes great scopes, has for years. My old 50MHz Tek 546 vacuum tube boat anchor had bit the dust some years back- probably HV supply issues. I've revived my interest in home building recently, and needed a good scope.

Hi Clutter..Good luck with the 465BTek..I own two Tek's..Few years back I saw an add in the local paper for a 7704A lab scope with two probes..The scope did not work so i got it at a very very reasonable price(75$)..After getting a schematic and about 4 weeks of troubleshooting, I found that an avalance diode went bad in the main power supply.Volia Sweetness!!Only draw back is this thing is huge and heavy but essentially does it all..I recently picked up a much smaller 475A scope..You know the old saying about the men and their toys...Again good luck..Jolphil

[Cluttermagnet]

Great, jolphil- That's real dedication to invest the time to get that old mainframe working again. I figure my 546 problem is probably fairly simple to fix- or so I hear, anyway. Seems finding and replacing a couple of capacitors would often revive the HV and make the traces visible again. I never have the time, though.