GraphicalGrubConfig

Revision 11 as of 2006-12-24 00:44:40

Clear message

Summary

Ubuntu should include a graphical tool for editing GRUB's configuration.

Rationale

There is at least one support request per week that regards how to configure the boot loader. For many users, this task isn't easy. It requires the user to learn how GRUB menu's configuration is generated.

A solution to this problem would to provide, in the default install, a graphical utility for editing GRUB's configuration.

Use Cases

  • Bob wants to make Windows the default operating system. He use the utility to drag the Windows to the first entry position.
  • Pedro wants the GRUB menu to appear when he boots his system. He open the utility, and uncheck the Hide Menu option.
  • John wants to change the length of the countdown. He open the utility, and increase it.

Scope

This specification would affect 'ubuntu-desktop' to include the graphical tool. There's already a utility available for this, [http://grubconf.sourceforge.net/ grubconf] but it's abandoned and the author recommends GST.

Design

Currently, I see two possible designs for handling the magic kernel list:

  • Parse menu.lst commented variables, and let 'update-grub' do the work.
  • Replace 'update-grub'.

Implementation

To be dicussed

Outstanding Issues

None right now

BoF agenda and discussion

This would be really important, since a lot of users have a dual- or multi-boot system. Most new users tend to leave Windows installed and more experienced users tend to have more then one Linux system installed. This also means, that a significant portion of ubuntu users are exposed to the dull, black and white GRUB-menu, so using an splashimage per default would make sense.

Nowadays we have two interesting packages in the repositories: grub-splashimages and kubuntu-grub-splashimages

Both contain a lot of splashimages, but no tool to easily use them. So users not only need to manually edit /boot/grub/menu.lst, they also need to find out first, which lines to enter, since menu.lst doesn't have a placeholder for splashimages.

Another reason for such a tool is, that the time GRUB waits for a selection can also only be changed by editing /boot/grub/menu.lst.

As far as splashimages are concerned, there already exists such a GUI-tool for usplash (http://blogs.ubuntu-nl.org/dennis/2006/09/13/more-fun-with-usplash/) but it's not in the repos yet.

--Sokraates

I have a python GUI tool here: http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=295524

It would surely need some polish but feel free to use any parts of it, should you want to.

--Jimmy

I also have a GUI Grub editor, based on zenity, here: http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=228104 It is written as a BASH script, and does most common Grub config things.

--Tomosaur

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