Grub Menu Editing (Not found /boot/grub/menu.lst)

[nujinini]

Hello!

My laptop is multi boot (xp,Fedora 10, Mint 7 & Ubuntu 9.10)

Since Ubuntu was the last OS I installed, it controls the grub, so to speak. It uses the Ubunut grub menu. I hope I explained that part well Anyway,when I edit (nano /boot/grub/menu.lst)
it opens the nano editor page BUT without any information. Usually, I get to edit the menu in this directory but now, it seems to be empty.

What do I need to do please? I would appreciate if you can walk me through this problem and get it solved,

Thank you!

[oz]

Ubuntu 9.10 uses GRUB2 by default unless you've removed it and installed GRUB legacy, and GRUB2 uses a different file (/etc/default/grub) for editing the GRUB menu.

Check this wiki page for the details of working with GRUB2 under Ubuntu:

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Grub2

If you are trying to mix GRUB legacy and GRUB2, I think you will run into a number of issues.

[nujinini]

Ubuntu 9.10 uses GRUB2 by default unless you've removed it and installed GRUB legacy, and GRUB2 uses a different file (/etc/default/grub) for editing the GRUB menu.

If you are trying to mix GRUB legacy and GRUB2, I think you will run into a number of issues.

Oh my!

I remember I removed grub2 and replaced it with the other choice. Thanks for the link. Will try it.

EDIT:

Done installing but when I opened grub using "/etc/default/grub" it did not show me the usual choices of OSes but this one instead:

# If you change this file, run 'update-grub' afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.

GRUB_DEFAULT=0
#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""

# Uncomment to disable graphical terminal (grub-pc only)
#GRUB_TERMINAL=console

# The resolution used on graphical terminal
# note that you can use only modes which your graphic card supports via VBE
# you can see them in real GRUB with the command `vbeinfo'
#GRUB_GFXMODE=640x480

# Uncomment if you don't want GRUB to pass "root=UUID=xxx" parameter to Linux
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_UUID=true

# Uncomment to disable generation of recovery mode menu entrys
#GRUB_DISABLE_LINUX_RECOVERY="true"

I need to edit the menu for the choices to boot.Thanks!

[nujinini]

Do I have to type the menu manually?

[Jonathan183]

I remember I removed grub2 and replaced it with the other choice. Thanks for the link. Will try it.

EDIT:

Done installing but when I opened grub using "/etc/default/grub" it did not show me the usual choices of OSes but this one instead:
[CODE]

OK what version of grub are you using ... open a terminal and type grub ... do you get grub version 0.97 ? if you do you are using grub legacy ... in which case try /boot/grub/menu.lst again.
If you are using grub2 then take a look in /etc/grub.d and don't forget to run update-grub after you change things

[nujinini]

Hi and Thank You! What do you suggest I try to do please?

jun@jun-laptop:~$ grub
The program 'grub' is currently not installed.  You can install it by typing:
sudo apt-get install grub
grub: command not found
jun@jun-laptop:~$ sudo apt-get install grub
[sudo] password for jun: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Suggested packages:
  grub-doc mdadm
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  grub-pc grub2
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  grub
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 2 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/407kB of archives.
After this operation, 1,077kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?

[rokytnji]

I would go with yes because it tells you it is uninstalling grub 2

The following packages will be REMOVED:
grub-pc grub2

and installing grub

The following NEW packages will be installed:
grub
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed,

[Jonathan183]

From the output you provided grub2 is installed, you can get the system to work with grub and grub2. If you install grub legacy then I think all your current versions of Linux will use the same version of grub ... which can save a few headaches ... at least for the moment.

[nujinini]

Hi!

I'm afraid I may be threading on uncharted waters here. Can somebody please check this out? Thanks guys!

jun@jun-laptop:~$ 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 grub2
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  grub
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 2 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0B/407kB of archives.
After this operation, 1,077kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y
Preconfiguring packages ...
(Reading database ... 181117 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing grub2 ...
Removing grub-pc ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Selecting previously deselected package grub.
(Reading database ... 180922 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking grub (from .../grub_0.97-29ubuntu59_i386.deb) ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Setting up grub (0.97-29ubuntu59) ...


jun@jun-laptop:~$ sudo apt-get install grub-doc mdadm
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  postfix
Suggested packages:
  procmail postfix-mysql postfix-pgsql postfix-ldap postfix-pcre sasl2-bin
  resolvconf postfix-cdb
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  grub grub-common
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  grub-doc mdadm postfix
0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 2 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 1,829kB of archives.
After this operation, 1,556kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? n
Abort.
jun@jun-laptop:~$ sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst  STILL GRUB IS AN EMPTY PAGE
jun@jun-laptop:~$ sudo apt-get install grub-doc mdadm
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
  postfix
Suggested packages:
  procmail postfix-mysql postfix-pgsql postfix-ldap postfix-pcre sasl2-bin
  resolvconf postfix-cdb
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  grub grub-common
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  grub-doc mdadm postfix
0 upgraded, 3 newly installed, 2 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 1,829kB of archives.
After this operation, 1,556kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y
Get:1 http://ph.archive.ubuntu.com karmic/main grub-doc 0.97-29ubuntu59 [285kB]
Get:2 http://ph.archive.ubuntu.com karmic/main mdadm 2.6.7.1-1ubuntu13 [240kB] 
Get:3 http://ph.archive.ubuntu.com karmic/main postfix 2.6.5-3 [1,304kB]       
Fetched 1,829kB in 48s (37.7kB/s)                                              
Preconfiguring packages ...
(Reading database ... 180968 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing grub ...
Removing grub-common ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead ...
ureadahead will be reprofiled on next reboot
Processing triggers for install-info ...
Selecting previously deselected package grub-doc.
(Reading database ... 180889 files and directories currently installed.)
Unpacking grub-doc (from .../grub-doc_0.97-29ubuntu59_all.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package mdadm.
Unpacking mdadm (from .../mdadm_2.6.7.1-1ubuntu13_i386.deb) ...
Selecting previously deselected package postfix.
Unpacking postfix (from .../postfix_2.6.5-3_i386.deb) ...
Processing triggers for doc-base ...
Processing 3 added doc-base file(s)...
Registering documents with scrollkeeper...
Processing triggers for install-info ...
Processing triggers for ureadahead ...
Processing triggers for man-db ...
Processing triggers for ufw ...
Setting up grub-doc (0.97-29ubuntu59) ...
Setting up mdadm (2.6.7.1-1ubuntu13) ...
Generating array device nodes... /var/lib/dpkg/info/mdadm.postinst: 170: /dev/MAKEDEV: not found
failed.
Generating mdadm.conf... done.
 Removing any system startup links for /etc/init.d/mdadm-raid ...
update-initramfs: deferring update (trigger activated)
update-rc.d: warning: mdadm start runlevel arguments (2 3 4 5) do not match LSB Default-Start values (S)
update-rc.d: warning: mdadm stop runlevel arguments (0 1 6) do not match LSB Default-Stop values (0 6)
 * Starting MD monitoring service mdadm --monitor                        [ OK ] 

Setting up postfix (2.6.5-3) ...
Adding group `postfix' (GID 121) ...
Done.
Adding system user `postfix' (UID 113) ...
Adding new user `postfix' (UID 113) with group `postfix' ...
Not creating home directory `/var/spool/postfix'.
Creating /etc/postfix/dynamicmaps.cf
Adding tcp map entry to /etc/postfix/dynamicmaps.cf
Adding group `postdrop' (GID 122) ...
Done.
setting myhostname: jun-laptop
setting alias maps
setting alias database
mailname is not a fully qualified domain name.  Not changing /etc/mailname.
setting destinations: jun-laptop, localhost.localdomain, , localhost
setting relayhost: 
setting mynetworks: 127.0.0.0/8 [::ffff:127.0.0.0]/104 [::1]/128
setting mailbox_size_limit: 0
setting recipient_delimiter: +
setting inet_interfaces: all
/etc/aliases does not exist, creating it.
WARNING: /etc/aliases exists, but does not have a root alias.

Postfix is now set up with a default configuration.  If you need to make 
changes, edit
/etc/postfix/main.cf (and others) as needed.  To view Postfix configuration
values, see postconf(1).

After modifying main.cf, be sure to run '/etc/init.d/postfix reload'.

Running newaliases
 * Stopping Postfix Mail Transport Agent postfix                         [ OK ] 
 * Starting Postfix Mail Transport Agent postfix                         [ OK ] 

Processing triggers for initramfs-tools ...
update-initramfs: Generating /boot/initrd.img-2.6.31-19-generic
Processing triggers for libc-bin ...
ldconfig deferred processing now taking place
jun@jun-laptop:~$ sudo nano /boot/grub/menu.lst
jun@jun-laptop:~$ sudo apt-get install procmail postfix-mysql postfix-pgsql postfix-ldap postfix-pcre sasl2-bin
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  os-prober
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following extra packages will be installed:
  db4.7-util
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  db4.7-util postfix-ldap postfix-mysql postfix-pcre postfix-pgsql procmail
  sasl2-bin
0 upgraded, 7 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 606kB of archives.
After this operation, 1,733kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y
Abort.
jun@jun-laptop:~$ sudo apt-get autoremove
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages will be REMOVED:
  os-prober
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
After this operation, 184kB disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]? Y
(Reading database ... 181154 files and directories currently installed.)
Removing os-prober ...
dpkg: warning: while removing os-prober, directory '/var/lib/os-prober' not empty so not removed.
jun@jun-laptop:~$ cat /var/lib/os-prober
cat: /var/lib/os-prober: Is a directory
jun@jun-laptop:~$ cd /var/lib/os-prober
jun@jun-laptop:/var/lib/os-prober$ ls
labels
jun@jun-laptop:/var/lib/os-prober$ cat labels
Windows 2
Fedora 1
LinuxMint 1
jun@jun-laptop:/var/lib/os-prober$

EDIT: I restarted and when grub appears, the OS I highlight would get to blink. Do you think I should try to undo the commands earlier? thanks

[Jonathan183]

You installed much more than you needed to ... take a look here ... instructions to regenerate menu included
Are you able to boot Linux on your hard drive or are you having to run from a live CD?