boot menu has vanished

[Susan Cragin]

I have Ubuntu Studio.
I have both the generic and real-time kernels installed, so I should be able to select from them on bootup, but my boot menu has vanished.
I have 2.6.31-6-generic
2.6.31-1-rt

cd /boot/grub shows me a long list of files that end with *.mod
So where is my menu.lst ??
name@ubuntu:/boot/grub$ ls *.lst
command.lst fs.lst handler.lst moddep.lst partmap.lst parttool.lst

[Nicola Ferralis (feranick)]

Thanks for reporting the bug. When exactly did it disappear (after you added an new kernel)? Which one did you install first? Do you have grub installed?

[Susan Cragin (susancragin)]

I installed Ubuntu Studio and it came with the rt kernel. Then I booted into it and installed the generic kernel, too. I just re-installed a couple of days ago.
It is possible that when I installed, I didn't properly check the box "install grub to root" at the end? I've installed Ubuntu over a dozen times, but anything's possible.
Here's what happens when I try to install grub. I have grub-pc but not plain grub.

susan@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get install grub
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Suggested packages:
  grub-doc mdadm
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  grub-pc
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  grub
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 427kB of archives.
After this operation, 868kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? y

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

You're running grub2 so it's called grub.cfg not menu.lst.

As far as the menu is concerned, perhaps https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-devel-announce/2009-August/000599.html will help. One thing I forgot to say there is that pressing Escape during boot with that configuration should bring up the menu. (In a future upload this will change to holding down Shift.)

Installing grub and removing grub-pc was probably a mistake due to the somewhat misleading comment 1 on this bug; this puts you at variance with how 9.10 is going to release, so I'd advise putting grub-pc back.

[Felix Zielcke (fzielcke)]

Am Donnerstag, den 20.08.2009, 10:14 +0000 schrieb Launchpad Bug
Tracker:
> You have been subscribed to a public bug:
>
> I have Ubuntu Studio.
> I have both the generic and real-time kernels installed, so I should be able to select from them on bootup, but my boot menu has vanished.
> I have 2.6.31-6-generic
> 2.6.31-1-rt
>
> cd /boot/grub shows me a long list of files that end with *.mod
> So where is my menu.lst ??

grub2 uses /boot/grub/grub.cfg

[Susan Cragin (susancragin)]

Thanks.
I was able to get the boot menu up. I have to be VERY quick and do it at just the right point. Too soon and my bios config comes up. Too late and it's too late.
The warning not to edit at the top of grub.cfg is a bit dire. Many people change their boot order.
I use Ubuntu Studio but like to download the generic kernel also, just in case, because the generic kernel is always newer, and just sometimes there are things it does better (or less quirkily). But I always edit menu.lst to make the RT the default boot.

[Susan Cragin (susancragin)]

Colin -- I've copied part of your announcement here because it addresses my concerns...
"
If you're upset by the boot menu being hidden all of a sudden, then you
should edit /etc/default/grub, comment out the GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT line, and set GRUB_TIMEOUT to the timeout you want in seconds (say "10"), then run 'sudo update-grub'.
"

[Felix Zielcke (fzielcke)]

Am Donnerstag, den 20.08.2009, 11:17 +0000 schrieb Susan Cragin:
> Thanks.
> I was able to get the boot menu up. I have to be VERY quick and do it at just the right point. Too soon and my bios config comes up. Too late and it's too late.
> The warning not to edit at the top of grub.cfg is a bit dire. Many people change their boot order.
> I use Ubuntu Studio but like to download the generic kernel also, just in case, because the generic kernel is always newer, and just sometimes there are things it does better (or less quirkily). But I always edit menu.lst to make the RT the default boot.
>

The warning is there because running update-grub (grub-mkconfig) just
overwrites your changes.
And often update-grub is called by the kernel image's prerm and postinst
scripts through /etc/kernel-img.conf and the grub-pc package itself runs
it.
So if you want to have your changes really permanent you have to edit
the files in /etc/grub.d/

--
Felix Zielcke
Proud Debian Maintainer

[Christian Schürer-Waldheim (quincunx)]

The hidden grub menu is intentional.