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With GRUB 2, you seem to be able to hide the startup menu (unless someone presses a certain button). But unfortunately grub disables this for multi-OS systems, I've looked up a few other pages.

But after one which made me have to re-install Ubuntu, I gave up. Does anyone know how this can be done on Ubuntu 12.04?

Sathyajith Bhat
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Thatcoolguy
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  • If you hide the grub menu, you will not be able to boot into Windows. – Emerson Hsieh May 19 '12 at 05:02
  • I thought that the answer would be explained by the description of how to set the GRUB variables in /etc/default/grub in this GRUB2 help section. I tried using the variables the way I thought the help said, but it does not work for me. Maybe you'll have better luck? If you figure it out on your own, please answer your own question to let us know what you did. – irrational John May 19 '12 at 05:09
  • But to unhide it you just have to hold a key during startup, correct? – Thatcoolguy May 19 '12 at 05:37
  • Yes i tried the variables too. i think they disabled it deliberatly. – Thatcoolguy May 19 '12 at 05:40
  • http://askubuntu.com/questions/117525/hide-grub2-menu-unless-you-hold-down-shift-key-how-to-make-this-happen – Thatcoolguy May 19 '12 at 22:53

2 Answers2

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I was trying to do the same and I found great help in the Ubuntu Forums, particularly in this thread.

Assuming you did the right thing with /etc/default/grub, correctly setting GRUB_TIMEOUT and #GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT (I'd say respectively to 0 and 5) and even GRUB_DEFAULT to specify the default image to boot, here's the procedure to have it work the right way.

  1. Add those lines

    GRUB_FORCE_HIDDEN_MENU="true"
export GRUB_FORCE_HIDDEN_MENU

    to the end of /etc/default/grub

  2. Backup your /etc/grub.d/30_os-prober and overwrite it with the version found here.

  3. Run the command: sudo update-grub to update the settings.

  4. Test it! To show the menu you have to hold the SHIFT key at startup.

This problem is related to the multi OS setup and editing the script is one of the way to correct that.

PS: This answer is exatcly the same given to another identical question

Community
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Dariopnc
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0

I provided a new workaround at the original question posted here. Hope it helps.

tux1c
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