up vote 7 down vote favorite
1

I wish to change a menu entry in grub.cfg, for example:

From

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
menuentry 'Ubuntu is wonderful'

To

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
menuentry 'Ubuntu is world famous'
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Try Grub Customizer. – Mitch♦ Mar 21 '14 at 12:35
1  
Its possible but ill-advised, and your changes will get overridden. – dan08 Mar 21 '14 at 13:25
1  
@Mitch I did consider Grub Customizer but there are many users who report having issues with it. One user even lost his ability to boot up the OS. – n00b Mar 21 '14 at 13:37
    
@n00b Yup, Grub Customizer just crashed on my first attempt to use it – endolith Apr 18 '16 at 2:06
up vote 9 down vote

Edit /etc/grub.d/10_linux instead and run sudo update-grub when you are done. This is a more reliable method, otherwise every time you upgrade to a new kernel your /boot/grub/grub.cfg will be overwritten and you will lose your changes.

Or you can use Grub Customizer. To install it:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:danielrichter2007/grub-customizer
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install grub-customizer
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1  
@edwin I did consider Grub Customizer but there are many users who report having issues with it. One user even lost his ability to boot up the OS. – n00b Mar 21 '14 at 13:38
2  
then use the first method. You can post your /etc/grub.d/10_linux if you unsure what lines to change. – Danatela Mar 21 '14 at 13:41
up vote 1 down vote

How to do it from an emulator to learn how GRUB works, without the risk of breaking anything.

  • create a Multiboot hello world main.elf file. GRUB knows how to boot those files (GRUB also knows how to boot the Linux kernel, even though it is not Multiboot)

  • create a iso/boot/grub/grub.cfg file containing:

    menuentry "main" {
    multiboot /boot/main.elf
}

    Place main.elf under iso/boot/

  • Generate an image and run it:

    grub-mkrescue -o main.img iso
qemu-system-x86_64 -hda main.img

This will boot into GRUB, and you will see an entry called main.

Now edit grub.cfg like menuentry "newmain", and upon a reboot the new option name is newmain. So your change would work.

I have posted the exact code for this example at: https://github.com/cirosantilli/x86-bare-metal-examples/tree/d217b180be4220a0b4a453f31275d38e697a99e0/multiboot/hello-world

As others said, don't do it in practice, since that is normally an output file and will get overwritten on update-grub.

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up vote -2 down vote

You just have to edit grub.cfg like you did (sudo [textEditor] /boot/grub/grub.cfg), save and reboot. Don't run sudo update-grub, it will overwrite grub.cfg.

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5  
update-grub is run by the system, for instance, when the kernel get updated. So if the OP follow your recommendation, he will loose his customization at some point in time. – Benoit Mar 21 '14 at 12:47
    
@Benoit That is what I read on the internet too. I will lose the customization at some point when the kernel is updated. Are there any other solutions? I just wish to change menu entries in grub.cfg – n00b Mar 21 '14 at 13:41
    
@n00b: if you really want to make permanent change, even you or the system run update-grub, I think that the only solution is to look into the scripts under /etc/grub.d and to do modification there. – Benoit Mar 21 '14 at 13:46
    
@Benoit: Thanks for your tip. I am new to Linux and do not have enough IT knowledge to do the necessary modifications of the scripts under /etc/grub.d – n00b Mar 21 '14 at 14:37
up vote -5 down vote

yes you can edit this file /boot/grub/grub.cfg

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