Lucid Lynx and grub

[Clay Weber]

On Friday, April 30, 2010 08:09:57 pm Mario Andes wrote:
> Hi Bruce,
> 
> in /etc/default/grub initially GRUB_DEFAULT is set to 'saved'. You can 
set
> it to 0 fir the first entry in the list and so forth until the number of
> the
> last entry.
> Afterwards when starting a system its number is saved in in variable
> 'saved'
> so the next time you start the system this number will be used if 
you have
> set GRUB_DEFAULT='saved'.
> That is what I expected to happen as set with 09.10!
> BUT NOTHING! /etc/default/grub and /boot/grub/grub.cfg (translated 
vesion
> it)
> are ok and the system always starts with the first entry of the list.
> 
> Apparently /etc/default/grub ist not translated correctly.
> Unfortunately I sdo not know when and where it is translated.
> I suppose the sources are corrupted, update-grub doesn't work or 
isn't
> compiled well when installing.
> The Upgrade was loaded, compiled and installed automatically in 1 
to 2
> hours
> loading the sources by internet and doing the rest on my computer 
with
> 09.10.
> 
> As 09.10 worked well all the time something during compilation 
must have
> happened.
> 
> Maybe somebody knows this error and what to change!
> 
> Regards Mario
> 
> On Sat, 01 May 2010 01:03:05 +0200, Bruce Marshall 
<bmarsh at bmarsh.com>
> 
> wrote:
> > On Friday, April 30, 2010, Mario Andes wrote:
> >> Lucid Lynx' grub doesn't start but the first system in the list!
> >> Sure, I can select another one. The advantage of grub 2 was 
that I
> >> didn't
> >> have to select a system every time.
> > 
> > Maybe there is a feature of grub that I never knew about, but 
grub for
> > me has
> > always started the "default system".    That default system is 
defined
> > as the
> > number of the entry of the system in the list of systems grub 
knows
> > about.
> > 
> > The normal default = 0   as the system is installed, and that is 
what
> > you are
> > seeing happen.
> > 
> > The default is defined in  /etc/default/grub as:
> > 
> > GRUB_DEFAULT=0
> > 
> > If you want it to boot some other system entry,  change the 
above to be
> > the
> > number of that entry in the list.

Have  you looked at the documentation here?:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2#Configuring GRUB 2

"GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT= If set to true this setting will automatically set 
the last selected OS from the menu as the default OS on the next 
boot.
No commands need be run to set the default OS.
Any time a menuentry is manually selected from the GRUB2 menu, it 
becomes the default OS."

This is probably what you need to add/edit to your /etc/default/grub

As for GRUB_DEFAULT, this is what that option is supposed to be 
doing:

"GRUB_DEFAULT=saved
The information in this section applies to GRUB 1.98 and later.
Enables the "grub-reboot" and "grub-set-default" commands to set 
the default OS.
The default OS will not be set by an interactive selection of an OS 
from the menu.
grub-set-default Sets the default boot entry until changed.
The format is sudo grub-set-default X, with X being the menuentry 
position (starting with 0 as the first entry) or the exact menu string. 
Examples: sudo grub-set-default 3 or sudo grub-set-default "Ubuntu, 
Linux 2.6.32-15-generic"
To obtain the existing menuentry choice number (starting from 0) or 
the menuentry "string", run grep menuentry /boot/grub/grub.cfg"

Note the version used above:" 1.98 or above". Karmic uses grub 1.97, 
and Lucid is using 1.98, so this is probably why you are seeing this 
change in behavior.

clay