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Is it possible to configure grub to have a dual boot setup behaving like described below?

  • When turning on PC and doing nothing, the default system should start as soon as possible without waiting for a countdown.
  • When wanting to boot another system, a key must be pressed to get to the normal grub menu to select a system.

Furthermore, I recently switched from grub legacy to grub and discovered that it takes notably longer to load before the menu shows up... Is it possible to reduce this time and get a fast boot?

My current /boot/grub/grub.cfg: grub.cfg

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  • Grub2 may be probing more hardware, or your system may be configured with some kind of timeout before the menu shows up. Please post your current grub.cfg.
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Commented Oct 23, 2012 at 22:09

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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just edit the grub defaults, type

sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

and then make sure that GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=false is replaced to GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true. Also make sure that there is no # in front of it. Now close the file and type

sudo update-grub

which at least on Debian based systems is short for:

sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

And you should be done! Now if you want to boot a different operating system, simply hold SHIFT while booting.

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  • What about GRUB_TIMEOUT and GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT? Note that you may have to use sth. like sudo grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg instead of update-grub.
    – user905686
    Commented Oct 29, 2012 at 17:12
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To achieve this, you have to change the value of the GRUB_TIMEOUT value from 5 (default) to 0 .

1 - Setting the timeout to 0 will make GRUB wait nearly 0 sec and boot the default os automatically without counter down.

2 - if you want to boot another system then Holding down Shift while booting get to the normal grub menu to select a system.(if it does not work then set grub_timeout to 1 or 2 sec)

To change the GRUB_TIMEOUT value:

  1. su or sudo to the root account.

su -

  1. Open the GRUB.cfg file either in vi editor or gedit (Gedit is easy (GUI))

vi /boot/grub/grub.cfg

 or

gedit /boot/grub/grub.cfg

  1. Find GRUB_TIMEOUT and change it's value 0
  2. Save the changes
  3. Update grub

grub-mkconfig -o /boot/grub/grub.cfg

If you have any difficulty then watch my video on Youtube.

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  • Sorry, read the question again: I mean the main system should start automatically without doing anything, not simply leave out the countdown.
    – user905686
    Commented Feb 6, 2013 at 11:16
  • sorry i edit the and now it might help you .
    – simplePerson43
    Commented Feb 6, 2013 at 13:04
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Yes, grub1.9X is much slower than grub0.9X, I want to know how to speed that up as well.

And your first request, you could just reduce the timeout (i.e set timeout=5) to 1 second, when you need to boot another system, just kept pressing the arrow keys (up / down / left), grub would stop the counter.

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