Quesomanrulz Tutorials

Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic Koala)  is the latest and certainly greatest from the Ubuntu flavor of Linux. Shipping with Ubuntu 9.10 is a heavily modified version of the classic bootloader “GRUB“. This is honestly the only thing I find negative about Karmic, I feel that GRUB 2 is certainly a downgrade, at least from an end-user standpoint. Not only do I feel that it does not look as good, what with its solid and primitive appearance, it is incredibly more complicated to configure than the previous bootloader. Previously to edit entries as well as make configuration changes one only had to enter in a simple command in the terminal, enter your password and edit the file. It was honestly one of my favorite and most used commands:

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

Now however we are looking at a completely different design and layout. The file that actually controls the content of the bootloader as you see it upon boot is by a config file but this file is a generated script which you are heavily advised (as in it won’t work apparently, I haven’t tried it for fear of blowing up my install) not to edit in any way. However there is a file and several other edits available that can allow you to customize it to the extent of the old version of GRUB. One file known as “40_custom” which allows you to edit/add entries to the bootloader. In the tutorial I go over how to access these files and the steps that must be taken to change and edit entries. Removing entries such as the memtest86+ entry must be done a different way entirely. Which I did not cover in the interest of time, a great text tutorial is available here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1195275. Be sure to follow the steps carefully and remember for any changes you have make to any files concerning grub, you have to enter the command:

sudo update-grub

That will regenerate the config file and apply all your changes.

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