Re: Newbie Grub2 tweaking tool/instructions?

[Jordan Uggla]

On Thu, Jul 5, 2012 at 6:23 AM, Richard Owlett <address@hidden> wrote:
> I'm new to Linux though have been end-user since CPM-80 days [took a much
> too long detour thru Windows].
>
> I've dedicated one machine to experimenting with multiple versions (mostly
> Debian related) installed from that distro's LiveCD.
>
> The combination of the installer and grub2 gives two annoying results:
>   1. The latest install goes to the top of the Grub displayed list of
> choices
>      of which OS to load.
>   2. The content of menu entries is not human friendly - it gives distro and
> kernel
>      version, but not desktop and my keyword for what options I took while
> installing.
>
> What I need:
>   1. newest install to be on bottom of the list
>   2. to be able to create menu entries meaningful to myself
>   3. the menu entries keep my custom entries across multiple additional
> installs
>
> What I'd also like is to not have excess menu entries:
>   1. each install provides a normal and "rescue" entry point. For the
> purpose of
>      _my experiments_, the "rescue" entry is just a line cluttering up the
> menu.
>   2. the Debian install also provide 486 and 686 versions. Only the 486
> version
>      will eventually be relevant on some eventual target machines so I'll
> only want
>      to experiment with that version.
>
> I take it as a given I'm going to have to dedicate a small partition or a
> USB stick for grub's exclusive use.

You don't have to do this, but it is the recommended way to handle
this. There's been a section in the GRUB manual added recently for
specifically this:
http://www.gnu.org/software/grub/manual/grub.html#Multi_002dboot-manual-config
. If there's anything not clear about this section please mention it
so that we can improve the documentation.

>
> Are my desires doable? reasonable?

Yes :)

>
> TIA
>
>
>
>
>
>
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