[jstarks4444]

Hi, I recently installed Xubuntu onto a hard drive with Windows XP already on it. I set up the swap partition and for the most part startup works fine. It goes into the menu and prompts to select an OS, otherwise the highlighted entry will boot in 10 or so seconds. My question is how can I change the order of the entries so that Windows XP is highlighted by default so that one could just turn the computer on and let it boot into Windows automatically? All help appreciated!

[Bartender]

Check this out -

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Gr...hangeDefaultOS

How do you like Xubuntu?

[GripS]

If you are using grub and this is only a dual boot system:

Fire open your terminal and 'cd /boot/grub'
then 'vi menu.lst'

Close to the top you will see an entry that simply states 'default' and it is probably set to '0'

Keep in mind that all entries start with 0 instead of 1. So if you look in your grub menu at boot you'll see a few entries and then your windows entry at the bottom. Start from the top. and count each entry making sure the first one you count is '0'. In my case i have 5 total entries. I count down from the top and windows is entry number 4. I switch the number from the default '0' to '4' (which would be the 5th entry when you start with '0'). Now your windows install will be selected by default.

I hope that helps.

Just below that you will also see 'timeout'. You can change the number of seconds it will wait to boot from there as well.

The Link Bartender pointed you to pretty much lay's out what i just said. It has you making a backup of your original menu.lst first though. Sorry Bartender. Typically when someone posts a link somewhere it goes into a convoluted explination of how to do something really simple. However you pointed him to a perfect guide.

[saikee]

I find GripS explanation taking the poster by his/her hand an excellent effort.

I would have just said

Just edit "default" and "timeout" statements in /boot/grub/menu.lst myself.

[jstarks4444]

Thanks! At first I had some trouble editing menu.lst because I thought the L was a 1. But now it works fine, thanks for all your help!

I have another question also but I guess I'll make another topic for that.

[Bartender]

Hi, Grips -
Being a terminal Linux newb myself, I try to avoid pasting in links and leaving the scene unless I think they're reasonably understandable. I know what you mean; often a link without any further elucidation makes things worse for someone who's trying to understand all the new terminology.

[Stephen47]

I tried both suggestions, bartender's and GripS'. I get a message stating that :
cp: target ~/boot/grub/menu.lst is not a directory. Or:
bash: cd/boot/grub: No such file or directory.
What did I do wrong?

[prunejuice]

sudo? As in:

sudo kwrite /boot/grub/menu.lst

...substitute kwrite with whatever text editor you wish to use.

## default grub root device
## e.g. groot=(hd0,0)
# groot=(hd2,0)

This is from my menu.lst which by default boots Kubuntu Edgy.
You need to change (hd2,0) to whatever GRUB lists the Windows partition as.

[prunejuice]

I have a better idea, why don't you paste your menu.lst contents here and we'll see what's going on?

[saikee]

Or tell us that your boot loader is Lilo!

Actually Lilo uses similar default and timeout too and the configuration file is /etc/lilo.conf

[Stephen47]

it is Ubuntu 6.06. If it says menu.lst is not a file or a directory, how do I access it to copy it here?

[saikee]

Think the terminal command to find from the root (/) of a Linux filing system by specifying its name should be

find / -name menu.lst

The kernel will report all menu.lst that it could find from the whole filing system.

The one the controls Grub in booting should always be in /boot/grub subdirectory, according to the Grub Manual.

[prunejuice]

Originally Posted by Stephen47

it is Ubuntu 6.06. If it says menu.lst is not a file or a directory, how do I access it to copy it here?

You'll find the file here:

/boot/grub/menu.lst

Make sure that in the view tab, Show Hidden Files is checked.

...or, in a terminal, enter...

kate /boot/grub/menu.lst

...it'll pop up.

[Bartender]

That's an "ell" in menu.lst, not a "one".

See if you can copy/paste these commands

sudo cat /boot/grub/menu.lst

to look at the menu.lst. This command will work fine for copy/pasting into an e-mail for the forum.

sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst

to make changes to the menu.lst

You can use certain commands to look at files, then use others to actually edit them. Just wanted to point that out. Got a suggestion for you that's working well for me. I have a binder near the PC. Whenever I see someone offer a Linux terminal command that I think might be handy, I carefully write the command down with a red pen, then use a black pen to write a short description of what the command does. Within a few weeks of prowling the forums you'll start to amass a useful list.

Have another way of at least confirming that you DO have a menu.lst. Go to "Places". Click on "Computer". Double-click on "File System". "boot" should be the 2nd folder. Click on the little triangle next to the word "boot". It changes to black, and rotates to point down, showing the folders and files within "boot". Now double-click on "grub". Double click on "menu.lst". TA-DAH! There's your menu.lst.

Hey, another thing - you'll notice that starting from the top, there are a bunch of lines with "#" or "##" in front of them. These are standard lines of text, commented out so that humans can read the information but the operating system will ignore them. The only lines that count are the ones near the bottom, without any #'s in front of them. Just copy/paste those lines at the bottom if you'd like, because we're gonna ignore all the boilerplate above anyway.

[Stephen47]

Well copy paste is a problem because I haven't been able to get online either, but first things first. I'll work on your suggestions when I get home tonight. Thanks