Comment 28 for bug 31915

I can also confirm both the problem (debian edgy, grub version 0.97-11ubuntu14) and that Ian did a fine job of explaining the intracacies of launchpad and the semantics as understood by ubuntu ;-)

Copying over some information from debian bug 254475
* you need to have "default saved" in your menu.lst, not "default $somenumber"
* you can achieve the desired behaviour by putting "$numberyouwanttobootnext:$numberofdefaultboot" into /boot/grub/defaults
  as Friedemann Baitinger wrote on Jan 28, 16:30:18
* debian fixed this by applying a patch that Friedemann Baitinger sent on Jan 28, 21:35:29. I suppose ubuntu could do the same.