1

Lately I'm seeing the GRUB menu appear when booting my machine. This happened after I put in an old drive that had a different [separate] Ubuntu installation on it. (This old drive has since been wiped and is now used as a backup location.) Do I need a boot loader if I have only one OS? Is it safe to remove GRUB completely?

3
  • 1
    It would likely be safer and simpler to reconfigure grub than remove it. Have you tried sudo update-grub? Jun 6, 2020 at 21:59
  • 1
    GRUB is much more than just a "choice" screen. It's the critical glue that tells your BIOS where to find your kernel and init. It is NOT safe to remove completely unless you are an expert who knows how to roll-your-own bootloader.
    – user535733
    Jun 6, 2020 at 22:04
  • There is a grub configuration that lets you set the number of seconds the screen shows(default around ten). I think you can set it to zero, but then you might have problem in future if you get a bad kernel boot.
    – crip659
    Jun 6, 2020 at 22:32

1 Answer 1

2

Do not remove grub - it is your bridge between bios and operation system (just as @user535733 described).

If you do not want to see the grub while starting open the file /etc/default/grub (use sudo with your editor) and change the lines to

GRUB_TIMEOUT=2
GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden

This will hide the menu but still will give the chance to enter it - when you press the ESC key while booting see reference

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .