Recovery option missing from Grub menu front screen

[Elfy]

When you get the new grub2 front screen - the bootable OS options on the first screen are all without their recovery mode options.

If you go to the Advanced options you are given the older kernels and their recovery modes.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: grub2 (not installed)
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-14.17-generic 3.5.3
Uname: Linux 3.5.0-14-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.5.1-0ubuntu7
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri Sep 14 17:10:36 2012
InstallationMedia: Xubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" - Alpha amd64 (20120714)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_GB:en
 TERM=xterm
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: grub2
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Yes. This was an upstream change and some people have asked for it in the past, so I decided to leave it the way it was and see whether people liked it the old or the new way. I'll take this as a vote in favour of the old way, but there is a clear cost in diverging from upstream, so we'll see if this is a widely-held view.

[Elfy (elfy)]

Actually now I look a bit deeper I'm more confused. Perhaps you can help me get my head around it.

If you take the default boot option - call it A

Then open the Advanced options are the top 2 new options now

Are they?

A
A's recovery mode

?

Or is the recovery option for the newest kernel now not there to select anywhere?

[Jeremy Bícha (jbicha)]

Elfy, it looks like A is duplicated on the default menu and the "advanced Ubuntu options" menu, so the recovery option for the newest kernel is the one at the top of the list.

I do like that there is always an "advanced Ubuntu options" menu. With previous Ubuntu releases, I'd have to keep an old kernel installed if someone asked me to make Windows the default boot option. /etc/default/grub wanted a specific numbered row to boot, and as the Windows options by default come at the end, it's important that that alternate menu not disappear like it did if there was only one kernel installed, as the Windows row number would then change.

So my vote is +1 for the new Quantal way of sticking recovery in an advanced menu.

[Elfy (elfy)]

Aah ok.

I was confused then.

I quite like the idea of the recovery option being behind a layer of menu.

@cjwatson - you can take this as a vote in favour of the new system now I know the whole story.

You can mark this invalid as far as I am concerned.

[Bill Albertson (bill-albertson)]

I just found this bug after about 1/2 an hour of searching on the internet. I'm not ok on hiding recovery mode behind a menu. Here is why:

1. It is not ok to think that a sys admin unfamiliar with Ubuntu, at 3am, will be figuring out that "advanced modes" is actually a menu. Yes, it sounds stupid, but at 3am doing something unfamiliar means it will get ignored, and just cause more headaches. Something like recovery mode should be in a fairly obvious location.

2. My situation today doesn't have to do with that scenario. Instead, I accidentally axed my group perms to sudo (which, while it would be a feature request, I think is a separate bug issue- if one is going to have a gui user management tool, it should allow checking to see if group membership is correct, some sort of type checking would be nice if you aren't even going to be able to create groups with the tool; that feature is missing from the user tool, which makes me wonder why ubuntu has one in the first place, as the tool appears to presume that anyone with permission levels to create users shouldn't be trusted to modify them).

Ok, back to my issue that arose. New installation. Created a minecraft users group. Added myself to test it. Forgot (due to distractions) that simply stating a group membership will ax me from the sudo group. Log out, log in. Can't do anything useful. Reboot to access recovery mode... oh, wait, there isn't a grub menu? Searching... Oh, ok, I have to hit shift...right. I hit shift- NO RECOVERY MENU. Why didn't I start poking around in a grub menu I wasn't familiar with yet? Because it is a grub menu I'm not familiar with yet.

3. I've never considered access to recovery mode an ADVANCED option. Maybe an emergency option, but not an advanced one.

Anyways, that is just my 2cents. I just find hiding something like recovery mode behind a menu a bit annoying. You can feel free to ignore it if you want- I've already updated my personal wiki with this new twist, so I could care less which direction Canonical jumps with it.

[Marcus Tomlinson (marcustomlinson)]

This release of Ubuntu is no longer receiving maintenance updates. If this is still an issue on a maintained version of Ubuntu please let us know.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for grub2 (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]