How to enable GRUB menu on Ubuntu 12.04 server?

Question

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.

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. — Apache, Jul 22 '12 at 10:13

ish · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-22T10:09:37.917

6

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

edited Jul 22 '12 at 10:09

answered Jul 22 '12 at 09:55

ish

139,926

As you can tell from his pastebin, this has already been done. – Jul 22 '12 at 10:02
@Cumulus007: you are wrong. See added image in edit. – ish Jul 22 '12 at 10:10

score 5 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 22 '12 at 10:12

5

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.

edited Jul 22 '12 at 10:12

ish

139,926

answered Jul 22 '12 at 09:40

But how do you keep holding the shift key via VNC? :) – Apache Jul 22 '12 at 10:09
Yepp!........ :) – Apache Jul 22 '12 at 10:13
Thanks, yes indeed. Shiki, I have no experience with KVM nor running it over VNC. – Jul 22 '12 at 10:16
Holding shift worked for me when running 12.04 as a VirtualBox guest. – OpenCoderX May 02 '13 at 13:37
In my case, repeatedly tapping Shift was required. – ʇsәɹoɈ Jun 04 '13 at 17:20

How to enable GRUB menu on Ubuntu 12.04 server?

2 Answers2

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