Wrong "OS" Menu Entry names displayed

[DanLo]

Hello,

30 minutes now that I was trying to change default boot option with Grub-customizer.
I just noticed why it did not worked : the entries G-U was giving to me did not correspond to the actual entry choices I had during boot.

What G-U displayed : (sorry it's in french but you should be ok)
> Ubuntu
> Option Avancées pour Ubuntu
> > Ubuntu, with Linux 5.3.0-40-lowlatency
> > Ubuntu, with Linux 5.3.0-40-lowlatency (recovery mode)
> > Linux Mint 19 Xfce, with Linux 4.19.94-40
> > Linux Mint 19 Xfce, with Linux 4.19.94-40 (recovery mode)
> > [Many other kernel choices]
> System Setup

Problem is, I am not on Ubuntu, but Linux Mint 19 Xfce.
And consequently, during boot the menu displays the following options :
> Linux Mint 19 Xfce
> Option Avancées pour Linux Mint 19 Xfce
> > Linux Mint 19 Xfce, with Linux 5.3.0-40-lowlatency
> > Linux Mint 19 Xfce, with Linux 5.3.0-40-lowlatency (recovery mode)
> > Linux Mint 19 Xfce, with Linux 4.19.94-40
> > Linux Mint 19 Xfce, with Linux 4.19.94-40 (recovery mode)
> > [Many other kernel choices]
> System Setup

It is also the result I get from a :
> grep "menuentry" /boot/grub/grub.cfg
First line of the results here is (just for illustration) : "menuentry 'Linux Mint 19 Xfce' --class ubuntu --class gnu-linux [...]"

This being noticed, I selected from drop down menu "Option Avancées pour Ubuntu>Ubuntu, with Linux 4.19.94-40", but the correct choice SHOULD be : "Option Avancées pour Linux Mint 19 Xfce>Linux Mint 19 Xfce, with Linux 4.19.94-40", that's why it was not working.

My conclusion is :
The parsing that is made to generate the menu entry list is not on the correct location, and should probably obtain such information from /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
Where is actually made such parsing (which file ?), so that I could understand better or maybe find the issue on my system ?

Daniel

[Daniel Richter (danielrichter2007)]

Grub Customizer runs grub-mkconfig and parses its output. Usually its output is the same as /boot/grub/grub.cfg, but in some cases it may differ (especially when the file was edited by hand or when not up-to-date).

So first take a look at the output of this command (just run `sudo grub-mkconfig`. It wont change your system just printing the new config to your console). Check it for the correct os names.

[DanLo (danlo-buntu)]

Hello,

Thanks for the information, I checked grub-mkconfig, the output is attached.

Short version : indeed, this commands prompts "Ubuntu" instead of "Linux Mint 19 Xfce". I don't know exactly why... and it does not correspond to the what I got at boot when pressing Esc / Shift to select the booting kernel.

I did not changed this file by hand, by the way. Could this be due to the fact that my current kernel was self patched + compiled + installed ?

[DanLo (danlo-buntu)]

Okay, I just found out what is going on; Maybe should be taken into consideration, as, as is the "select default kernel entry" dropdown menu is broken :

What is wrong from grub-mkconfig script is $OS value, set to "Ubuntu", meanwhile the entries at boot have another name (for me, "Linux Mint 19 Xfce"). This looks like an old issue, with "Ubuntu" being hardcoded in a few files. Here is what gave me the tip, in /etc/default/grub.d/50_linuxmint.cfg :
 "danlo@BrixPyxis:$ more /etc/default/grub.d/50_linuxmint.cfg
#! /bin/sh
set -e

# Set distributor to "Ubuntu"
#
# In Mint 16:
# shim and grub come with hardcoded ubuntu strings upstream, without this EFI installation is broken
# https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/grub2/+bug/1242417
#
# In Mint 17:
# Despite the bug report being marked as fixed, the situation is the same. Grub was patched by Ubuntu
# to assign the "ubuntu" distributor ID when it was given "Kubuntu". That results in Kubuntu finally
# getting EFI to work out of the box but still using "ubuntu" as far as grub-install is concerned.
# So we'll stick to "Ubuntu" for this iteration.
#
# In Mint 18:
# Some packages are still hardcoded with the "ubuntu" path.. fwupdate for instance.
# Visually, the grub boot menuentry name is set for derivatives in 10_linux,
# but underneath the EFI path remains "ubuntu" for everything to work properly.

GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR="Ubuntu"

-----------
=> $OS is still hardcoded to "Ubuntu" from GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR variable and Linux Mint seems to feed from a different source the texts on boot menu..!
Question is, where does Mint gets it's "Linux Mint 19 Xfce" from... I could not really find from reading 10_linux file.