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Grub2 - Community Ubuntu Documentation says the following:

Saving an OS can be achieved by running sudo grub-set-default if DEFAULT=saved is set in /etc/default/grub. It may also be saved if GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT=true is also set in /etc/default/grub. In this case, the default OS remains until a new OS is manually selected from the GRUB 2 menu or the grub-set-default command is executed.

I put the lines DEFAULT=saved AND GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT=true in /etc/default/grub, and ran sudo grub-set-default. Here is the output:

$ sudo grub-set-default
entry not specified.
Usage: grub-set-default [OPTION] entry
Set the default boot entry for GRUB.

  -h, --help              print this message and exit
  -v, --version           print the version information and exit
  --boot-directory=DIR    expect GRUB images under the directory DIR/grub
                          instead of the /boot/grub directory

ENTRY is a number or a menu item title.

Report bugs to <[email protected]>.

Am I not following the documentation correctly? What's the correct way to do this?

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2
  • 3
    After changing the grub file you best always run " sudo update-grub" .
    – Julien Chau
    Jun 9, 2012 at 18:36
  • 2
    Just run: sudo grub-set-default saved It's that simple.
    – T. Coles
    Apr 6, 2017 at 15:01

5 Answers 5

Reset to default
254

The documentation in this case is wrong. All variables in /etc/default/grub start with GRUB_, so the correct syntax is GRUB_DEFAULT=saved, not DEFAULT=saved. I've corrected the Ubuntu wiki to reflect that.

The official grub manual describes this correctly.
Put the following in /etc/default/grub (command line: gedit admin:///etc/default/grub):

GRUB_DEFAULT=saved
GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT=true

Then run:

sudo update-grub
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7
  • 7
    +1 for the link, I've edited your answer with the solution that worked for me (which I derived from the link you provided)
    – Jay Sullivan
    Jun 18, 2012 at 17:47
  • 1
    should I remove existing line GRUB_DEFAULT=0 ?
    – user25
    Jun 2, 2018 at 14:01
  • 3
    @user25 yes remove GRUB_DEFAULT=0, the line should read GRUB_DEFAULT=saved
    – ctrl-alt-delor
    Jan 2, 2019 at 21:14
  • I reboot into windows from linux using the above command. But now when i reboot from Windows, it defaults to windows and I cannot reboot from Windows into Linux
    – revolutionary
    Nov 16, 2019 at 23:15
  • @revolutionary You can change it from boot options (F12) during boot.
    – VidathD
    Jun 10, 2020 at 14:23
13

In my case it was not working for entries defined via /etc/grub.d/40_custom which were missing the savedefault line.

menuentry "Chameleon" {
    savedefault ### <<<< this must be added
    set root="(hd1)"
    chainloader +1
}
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5

savedefault will not work, if there is no proper header in auto generated grub.cfg

To generate proper header you need set in /etc/default/grub

GRUB_DEFAULT=saved

and make grub-mkconfig to substitute your copy of grub.cfg

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub.cfg

savedefault from Grub 2.02 don't require any additional arguments

You could see source of savedefault in grub.cfg

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1
4

You are forgetting the number (ie. the "ENTRY is a number or a menu item title." in your text).

sudo grub-set-default 1

for option 1 to be the default.

Always run sudo update-grub after modifying the /etc/default/grub file to apply the changes.

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2
  • 7
    This did not work for me, it just sets the GRUB menu to point to entry #1, not the last choice
    – Jay Sullivan
    Jun 18, 2012 at 17:47
  • If your menu option would be buried in a submenu, like within 'Advanced options for ubuntu', the format is 'submenu-index>submenu-item-index'. So you'd need to specify 1>'index-of-your-choice'. You are also supposed to be able to specify by string name for each selection.
    – Epu
    Nov 30, 2015 at 20:29
2

Thanks to ccpizza I figured out, that my Windows-menuentry in /etc/grub.d/40_custom was missing the savedefault Attribute:

menuentry 'Windows 10' {
    savedefault    # <<<<<<<<<<<< THIS Attribute was missing!
    insmod ntfs
    insmod ntldr
    insmod part_msdos
    insmod search_fs_uuid
    search --fs-uuid --no-floppy --set=root <WINDOWS_SSD_UUID>
    ntldr /bootmgr
}

In my case (Arch Linux, not Ubuntu ;) ) I found pacman -S grub-customizer (from this Post on StackOverflow of matt-u) which is a nice GUI Tool for customizing GRUB-Menu!

PS: I could neither upvote nor comment on ccpizza's answer because of missing credits in this forum, so I decided to give another answer :(

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1
  • While the accepted answer is probably more relevant, this is what got my config running properly. Thanks!
    – SPRBRN
    Feb 15, 2021 at 11:45

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