changing grub

[Ray Parrish]

Derek Broughton wrote:
> Knute Johnson wrote:
>
>   
>> Vincent Trouilliez wrote:
>>     
>>> On Sat, 28 Mar 2009 10:50:10 -0600
>>> Gary Kirkpatrick <pegngary at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>       
>>>> My wife wants windows to be the first loading choice when grub comes up
>>>> (shame on her!).  Is there a way to do that?
>>>>         
>>> Yep, just edit this file:
>>>
>>> /boot/grub/menu.lst
>>>
>>>       
>> The option is the;
>>
>> default             0
>>
>> change it to the number of your windows entry.  If you update and add a
>> kernel, you will have to do this again.
>>     
>
> Actually, not.  As menu.lst says:
>
> # Put static boot stanzas before and/or after AUTOMAGIC KERNEL LIST
>
> ### BEGIN AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST
> ## lines between the AUTOMAGIC KERNELS LIST markers will be modified
> ## by the debian update-grub script except for the default options below
>
> So, what you do if you _must_ have Windows first (and can't get a
> divorce...) is move the Windows stanza _before_ the AUTOMAGIC KERNELS, and
> then it will always be the first option.
>   
Hello,

Just wanted to address a small fine point here. When starting a GUI 
application with root privileges, such as gedit you need to use the gksu 
command on the start of the line, not the sudo command, which is used 
for command line programs. so the earlier given command to edit menu.lst 
should be -

gksu gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst &

I have also added an "&" on the end of the command line, which will 
cause gedit to fork away from the Terminal session, so that shutting 
down the Terminal window will not also shut down your gedit session, 
which is will do, without the & on the end of the line. If however, you 
want any error messages generated by gedit to be printed to the terminal 
window, leave off the &, and leave the Terminal window open until you 
are done with gedit.

The reason for my clarification of this point is that in my experience, 
attempting to start a GUI program with sudo usually will not start the 
program. You issue the command, get prompted for your password in 
terminal, then nothing happens after that.

Later, Ray Parrish

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