Dave’s Tech Blog
A Third Eye on Technology

If you’ve done a dual boot installation of Ubuntu next to Windows, you’ve probably noticed this damn ugly thing when you first turn your computer on:

This is the Grub menu. It appears on boot to ask you which operating system you would like to boot. By default, Ubuntu (the latest kernel) is selected. If you’re a former Windows user who is just starting to get their feet wet in Ubuntu, you may not want Ubuntu to be the default OS that is selected in this menu when you first boot your PC. You might also want to do things like change the color scheme or add a graphical background behind the menu, adjust the timer, etc. An easy program to do this with is called QGRUBEditor.

To download and install QGRUBEditor, do the following:

• Download the QGRUBEditor Deb Installer Package here: Ubuntu download (Debian Package (2.5.0)
• Save the *.deb file to your desktop and then run it by double clicking on it.

The above window will appear when you run the deb file. Click the Install Package button in the upper-right hand corner…

The term “unauthenticated” means “Software that is not officially supported by Canonical, and that you will have to take up any technical issues you encounter with this software to its own developers.” That may sound just a little bad, but don’t worry. The software has been well tested and is not malicious. Click Yes when you see the above box appear.

Once you have QGRUBEditor installed, you can run it from Applications>System>QGRUBEditor. Here’s what the Interface looks like:

CAUTION! - Take extra care to not screw anything up in here. Messing with this thing is a little like messing with the registry in Windows XP. Fortunately, there is a backup button at the top that you can click on before you start making any changes. If you make an accidental change that you didn’t want, you can click a Restore button which will revert everything back to the way it was when you started.

You’ll notice that the top half looks pretty similar to that Grub menu we’re familiar with. You can do things here like change the order of the listing, as well as remove or add entries. Now let’s take a peek at the GRUB Settings tab (at the bottom):

There are a lot more settings you can change in here, such as the default OS. Most of the settings found in here are pretty self-explanatory:

• Fallback Entry: The OS that loads if the default is unable to for some reason
• Timout: Number of seconds the Grub menu will be displayed before auto-selecting the default OS.
• Password: Places a password on your grub menu to prevent manual editing by unauthorized users.
• Colors: Menu background and text colors.
• Splash Image: An option background image (visit this link to browse boot splash screens you can download and use).

When you are all done adjusting settings, all you have to do to save your changes is close the program. Restart your computer and check out your changes! In the event you screwed your grub up, you can restore it using an Ubuntu Live CD. Here is a guide for how to do this.

With the right kind of tweaking, you can make your grub look pretty slick:

Have fun!

Alright, meow. I’ve recently added a new category called “HOWTO: Ubuntu” to the list of keywords I can file my blog entries into. I will be sorting previous blogs relating to Ubuntu that are not tutorial-oriented into the “Ubuntu” category, and separate them entirely from blog entires that are more fitting for the “HOWTO: Ubuntu category.”