Grub Customizer – Graphical interface to configure the grub2/burg settings
Grub Customizer is a graphical interface to configure the grub2/burg settings with focus on the individual list order -- without losing the dynamical behavior of grub.
The goal of this project is to create a complete and intuitive graphical grub2/burg configuration interface. The main feature is the boot entry list configuration -- but not simply by modified the grub.cfg: to keep the dynamical configuration, this application will only edit the script order and generate proxies (script output filter), if required.
Install Grub Customizer in ubuntu
Open the terminal and run the following command
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:danielrichter2007/grub-customizer
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install grub-customizer
Once you install you can open from Applications -> System Toiols -> Grub Customize
Grub customizer fails with message grub-mkconfig not executed. You must run this as root.
@MIke McKeigue: Grub Customizer uses grub-mkconfig to load your actual grub configuration. As this command requires root permissions, Grub Customizer must be executed with theese permissions too. So… do you run this as root (using the menu menu or running the command “gksu grub-customizer”)?
If yes, please run `sudo grub-mkconfig` using the command line. This should generate and show your grub2 configuration.
Hello, and firstly thanks for making this app. I installed it under Kubuntu 10.10 64bit. It runs, but doesn’t honour the background image (1280×1024 .jpg)or the custom resolution (1280x1024x24) I set. I just get a black background at full resolution (1920×1200). Any ideas why? Thanks 🙂
Hi Dave,
this is usually a problem of grub2 itself. It ignores jpeg images under certain conditions. Please convert it to png and try again.
Daniel,
This app will not change font or highlight colors under Natty, even when run with root permissions.
How can I obtain a copy of the source?
I’d like to patch it so it will run under Natty.
Thanks, John
Hi John,
I’ll fix this – got this bug today: https://bugs.launchpad.net/grub-customizer/+bug/781683.
You can obtain a copy of the source by running `bzr branch lp:grub-customizer` – but I think it’s better if you let me fix this (I want to stay backwards compatible and so on…) 😉
@John,
ok, I have to change my statement. It seems to be some more work I thought… so every patch is welcome. The version detection I wrote about, could be added afterwards. Look at the bug I linked in my previous post. There’s a list of what’s to do.
Thanks,
Daniel
hi daniel
thanks for this. it worked for me. just a question, is there a way to get icons on the interface instead of command lines. i tried burg but it didn’t work. just wondering if i can do it using the grub customiser.
cheers
seain
There are two ways to get a graphical Grub:
* BURG
* gfxboot (an extension for grub)
Generally, BURG is the easier way to do it…
Did you run `sudo burg-install /dev/sda`?
Yes, Grub Customizer also supports BURG as it has almost the same configuration (but different paths). If BURG AND Grub2 is installed, Grub Customizer asks you which of them you want to configure.
Hi.Thanks for your great work.I was successfully able to use grub-customizer the day i installed it.Afterwards i am unable.I always get this same message ‘grub-mkconfig couldn’t be executed successfully.You must run this root!
I have sought help from other members who gave me the following commands:
gksu grub-customizer (this gives the message above)
sudo grub-mkconfig (gives the message’/etc/default/grub: 37: splash: not found’)
please help
@Gwaro:
Please post the content of line 37 from the file /etc/default/grub. There seems to be the failure.
Hi. I need your help. I’m a Brazilian. I’m a novice in Linux. I only used Windows, just.
I install the Ubuntu 10.04 in my notebook. I have Windows 7 installed in this.
So, I wish to customize my GRUB, but, when I will install the GRUB (sudo add-apt-repository ppa:danielrichter2007/grub-customizer), are happening some errors:
-says that I need have a “menu” (that I don’t know what is this).
-Some packages could not be installed.
-you have requested an impossible situation or if you are using the unstable distribution.
-Broken packages.
In resume: the GRUB-CUSTOMIZER don’t was installed, I can not used it for customize my choose of SO.
Please, help.
hi,
y can run it on windows xp terminal? or it´s just for linux those commands.
@Luciano Aniceto
make sure the universe repository is active. There’s the menu package.
@Nicolas
Grub Customizer is only available for linux.
Hello Daniel,
How do I get the long list of resolutions in Grub Customizer to replace the very short list of two resolutions that come with Ubuntu 12.04?
After selecting a resolutions and saving/updating/restarting, the changes don’t take effect.
Hope you can help.
@Jo: Grub Customizer uses “hwinfo –framebuffer” to find out the available resolutions.
Do you get more results when running “sudo hwinfo –framebuffer” ?
I ran “sudo hwinfo –framebuffer” and restarted but nothing appeared to change.
I then ran grub customizer and just clicked ‘save’ then in terminal ran “sudo update-grub”.
After restart, I’ve got more than two resolutions – first time in over two years!!! – but also an error message on bootup:
===========================================
Could not apply the stored configuration for monitors requested position/size….
===========================================
I won’t bore you with the rest but my setup is two monitors with only one now working but it does have a better resolution.
lspci | grep VGA gives:
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD] nee ATI Manhattan [Mobility Radeon HD 5430 Series]
I haven’t activated the ATI drivers because the last time I did, I got an ‘out of range’ box on a blank screen.
My current grub file reads;
# If you change this file, run ‘update-grub’ afterwards to update
# /boot/grub/grub.cfg.
# For full documentation of the options in this file, see:
# info -f grub -n ‘Simple configuration’
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 nomodeset”
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=””
# Uncomment to enable BadRAM filtering, modify to suit your needs
# This works with Linux (no patch required) and with any kernel that obtains
# the memory map information from GRUB (GNU Mach, kernel of FreeBSD …)
#GRUB_BADRAM=”0x01234567,0xfefefefe,0x89abcdef,0xefefefef”
# 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=”1280x1024x16″
GRUB_GFXPAYLOAD_LINUX=”keep”
# 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 entries
#GRUB_DISABLE_RECOVERY=”true”
# Uncomment to get a beep at grub start
#GRUB_INIT_TUNE=”480 440 1″
Thanks for the response. Like I said, it’s been a couple of years that I’ve been having issues with dual monitors/resolution but I’m not alone.
I don’t know if you understood correctly: Grub Customizer uses “hwinfo –framebuffer” internally. This isn’t a magic command which allows you to use more resolutions afterwards. It only finds out the resolutions, which are available on startup.
I don’t think your problem is related to Grub Customizer. When clicking save it just saves your changes to /etc/default/grub as well as (if the list configuration has been modified) /etc/grub.d and does a simple “update-grub”.
OK, I understand.
Thanks anyway.
I run Xubuntu 12.04 (64bit) along with win7. In Grub customiser, I unchecked some OS entries intending to avoid previous entries. Now I get only the win7 entry and no Xubuntu. I am trying to find a way to reinstall grub2 instead of reinstalling Subuntu itself. This had happened to me earlier also regarding some glfx entries. PLEASE include some warning if someone like me unchecks all the Linux entries that leaves windows alone in the list. Thank You.
Run (x)ubuntu from the cd and install grub customizer there. Then when you’re running it you can choose your xubuntu partition und make modifications as usual.
Thank you very much. Your instructions worked like a charm and saved me from reinstallation or other laborious solutions! I am posting this from
Xubuntu only.
However may I make two humble suggestions?
1. Do not allow a user to uncheck all linux versions, at least one version should be retained in the selection.
2. A preview may be shown (if possible) of the boot menu selected, so that the user can have a chance to avoid making such foolish mistakes.
Thank you once again.
Eventhough the system booted without any problem yesterday, today after selecting linux in the grub menu, error’command gfxmode not found… press any key to continue’ appears and the booting continues after 5 seconds. If I select win7 there is no problem.
@Srinivas Murthy:
“(script code)” disabled in Grub Customizer?
I know this is another thing where I should the user…
Yes, I had disabled it in the ‘linux (custom)’ portion. I checked it and rebooted, the error did not appear.
However custom appears twice in the options and the last one was checked.
Thanks again.
Is there anything i’ve missed. Faults after sudo ‘Unable to locate grub-costomizer…………’
So, how to resolve???
Will this work on Mint 14 Xfce? I’d like to change the black background and make the font sizes bigger, easier to see. Thanks
I’m using win 7luxury alongside with ultimate edition 3.8 and anytime i try to configure bootmenu to graphic bootmenu and open grub customizer the message i get is “burg found! do you want to configure BURG instead of grub2?” What I should do? please hope you can help me out. thank
Grub-customizer seems to change the menu order, background image and font/size but not the font colour. Which stays as a hard to see white.
What else do I need to do?