grub-reboot needs to display name of operating system that will be booted

[John Pye]

Binary package hint: grub

The 'grub-reboot' utility looks pretty useful, but it has a big usability problem due to the fact that successive Ubuntu updates result in an ever-lengthening list of bootable kernels, each time a new kernel package is release. Since Windows is at the end of the list in menu.lst, it's impossible to know for sure (programmatically) which one it is, without going and looking at the menu.lst file by hand.

Grub-reboot therefore needs to display the *name* (title) of the operating system it will be booting (by parsing menu.lst and displaying the name accordingly), so that use can be confident they have chosen the correct GRUB boot ID.

A further improvement would be for grub-reboot to accept names instead of IDs.

[Chris Bruner (iplayfast)]

I second this. I've got multiple os's installed and now I have to guess which one to set as default? I think the old system of hand editing menu.1st actually was easier.

[Rolf Leggewie (r0lf)]

confirming as wishlist. Your best bet to see this being realized is to report it upstream to the grub developpers.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

well, grub1 is dead upstream; so in that case this should be reassigned to grub2 as well.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

This is in fact already fixed by my grub-reboot implementation in GRUB 2; it accepts names as well as numbers to avoid precisely this problem. (I doubt it will ever be fixed in GRUB Legacy; it would be rather difficult and there is no development effort there to speak of.)