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2

I have an Ubuntu server installed, and no matter what settings do I try to change, the GRUB menu won't appear. It only shows "Booting hard disk ...10... 9..." and that's all!

My /etc/default/grub file.
The /boot/grub/grub.cfg.

It's a KVM guest.

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How do I accept TWO answers? izx won the prize, his solution displays the menu always. Cumulus won the second prize, his solution shows the menu when you want to. Awesomeness. Ty. – Shiki Jul 22 '12 at 10:13
up vote 6 down vote accepted

  • Here's the relevant portion of your pastebin'd /etc/default/grub:

    enter image description here

  • Please comment out these lines in /etc/default/grub by adding a # in front:

    GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=10
GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=false

  • Save, and then run sudo update-grub

  • The menu should now appear on every run, with a 10 second timeout for the default entry (0); we just "un-hid" the menu during the timeout countdown.
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As you can tell from his pastebin, this has already been done. – Cumulus007 Jul 22 '12 at 10:02
    
@Cumulus007: you are wrong. See added image in edit. – izx Jul 22 '12 at 10:10
up vote 5 down vote

Try holding the shift key during boot. Sometimes you need to repeatedly keep tapping the key (up/down, up/down, etc.) instead of just holding it down to get this to work.

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But how do you keep holding the shift key via VNC? :) – Shiki Jul 22 '12 at 10:09
    
Yepp!........ :) – Shiki Jul 22 '12 at 10:13
    
Thanks, yes indeed. Shiki, I have no experience with KVM nor running it over VNC. – Cumulus007 Jul 22 '12 at 10:16
    
Holding shift worked for me when running 12.04 as a VirtualBox guest. – opensourcechris May 2 '13 at 13:37
    
In my case, repeatedly tapping Shift was required. – ʇsәɹoɈ Jun 4 '13 at 17:20

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