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I am running Ubuntu GNOME 15.10 with GNOME 3.18 and in the past at random seemingly there was a period in which when starting up my computer I would get the GRUB options which would allow me to choose between launching Ubuntu, Advanced options for Ubuntu, System options, etc...

Now however I just get a strangish gray screen with a border which is darker than the middle and then verbose console output, is there any way to force this options selection at startup? Because if I ever need to access it seemingly only causing my machine to have a cold shutdown during startup will do it which is not ideal...

2 Answers2

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To force it to come up every time, you need to edit the file /etc/default/grub for example with

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

comment out the line GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0 so it looks like

#GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0

or if you do not have that line, comment out GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden

#GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden

and make sure GRUB_TIMEOUT is set to something above 0 and enough seconds for you to do something when you get to the screen, for example

GRUB_TIMEOUT=10

Save & exit.

After changing this file, you have to run this command to make changes effective:

sudo update-grub

(I figured this out by reading the documentation but this popular answer also explains it)

Zanna
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If you're running a PC selecting F12 during bootup will take you to the boot options section. If you go to boot-order, or something like that, and push the GRUB boot manager to the highest priority. It should boot to GRUB first after that. If you're running a Mac, it could be the same, but I've never used OSX so I don't actually know.

James
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