Ubuntu

Editing of entries in Grub 1.5 in simple terms

Asked by Dr Rahul Rai

I ve ubuntu 9.10 installed with grub 1.5. Now whenever I m updating my system it is adding new entries to grub which is causing windows xp entry pushed to the last. So there are two problems one how to make windows come to top & second how to remove other useless entries of previous versions of ubuntu from grub. Kindly make it simple to understand coz my knowledge of computers is quite to basic level & in regards to ubuntu terminologies its quite rudimentary. Thanks in anticipation

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Marc Stewart
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Best Marc Stewart (marc.stewart) said : 		#1

Grub editing isn't really recommended unless you understand exactly what you're doing, since mistakes have the tendency to stop your computer from starting up, so I don't really want to explain that unless you insist, having been made aware of the dangers.

However, you can remove older Ubuntu entries from the menu easily and reasonably safely.
Open the Synaptic package manager (System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager)
In the Quick search box, type:
linux-image
As you scroll down the list of results, you should see a group of entries labelled something like:
linux-image-2.6.32-19-generic (exact numbers will vary by version, but the 2.6 at the beginning should be consistent)
Some of these have highlighted boxes to their left; these represent the installed versions of Ubuntu.

YOU MUST KEEP AT LEAST ONE VERSION, ideally the most recent (the one with the highest number after 2.6), but the other (older) versions (with lower numbers) can be removed.

To remove older versions, click the highlighted square and, in the menu that appears, click Mark for Removal.
When you've finished marking old versions for removal, click Apply up in the toolbar.
When you next start your computer, there should be just one Ubuntu version listed (plus its recovery mode), the memory checks, and Windows XP, making it more reachable.

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Rajinder Sandhu (sandy744) said : 		#2

Dr Rahul.
That is fairly easy....follow the simple method open the synaptic package manager and in the search box type linux-image it will display all the images currently installed on your system eg ubuntu 2.6.31-19-generic and so on keep the latest image ie 2.6.31.21and remove rest all ...you need to right click on the selected image and choose remove completely....likewise for all the old images it will free up hard disk space also...then you can remove their headers also each header of this image is about 70 Mb since old image is not available so no use of header method is same...right click remove completely...
then run sudo update-grub in the terminal...
that will fix your problem.
Regards
Rajinder Sandhu

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Rajinder Sandhu (sandy744) said : 		#3

this is how to reach to synaptic
System>Administration>synaptic package manager
and to go to terminal choose Applications>Accesories>Terminal
Regards
Rajinder

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Dr Rahul Rai (rrai79) said : 		#4

Thanks a lot dear Marc & Rajinder for so quick & simple replies. You both understood my level of familiarity with linux & gave me the way to reach synaptic package manager otherwise I would have spent another 15-20 min to find it out. Thanks once again