[SOLVED] GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT option not working

frushiyama · 12-15-2016, 05:06 PM

I am trying to use this option on grub2 and it does not goes to the latest boot option.
From manual:

Quote:

‘GRUB_DEFAULT’
The default menu entry. This may be a number, in which case it identifies the Nth entry in the generated menu counted from zero, or the title of a menu entry, or the special string ‘saved’. Using the title may be useful if you want to set a menu entry as the default even though there may be a variable number of entries before it.

For example, if you have:

menuentry 'Example GNU/Linux distribution' --class gnu-linux {
...
}
then you can make this the default using:

GRUB_DEFAULT='Example GNU/Linux distribution'
If you set this to ‘saved’, then the default menu entry will be that saved by ‘GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT’, grub-set-default, or grub-reboot.

The default is ‘0’.

‘GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT’
If this option is set to ‘true’, then, when an entry is selected, save it as a new default entry for use by future runs of GRUB. This is only useful if ‘GRUB_DEFAULT=saved’; it is a separate option because ‘GRUB_DEFAULT=saved’ is useful without this option, in conjunction with grub-set-default or grub-reboot. Unset by default. This option relies on the environment block, which may not be available in all situations (see Environment block).

Source: https://www.gnu.org/software/grub/ma...-configuration

I have Slackware64_current plus multilib installed and updated using grub2, with dual boot with W10 made with aid with this post.

Is there a way to debug how the grub2 is doing the boot?
I am sending my /etc/default/grub in attach.

Hangaber · 12-15-2016, 05:13 PM

I turned the 'saved' feature off a few months ago, but it was working for me.
Do you have a 'grubenv' file, such as "/boot/grub/grubenv"?
If not;

Code:

grub-editenv /boot/grub/grubenv create

frushiyama · 12-15-2016, 05:19 PM

Yes i have, here its content:

Code:

# GRUB Environment Block
saved_entry=gnulinux-advanced-08280077-85be-42fa-a690-cce02de1c18b>gnulinux-4.4.32-advanced-08280077-85be-42fa-a690-cce02de1c18b

Hangaber · 12-15-2016, 05:33 PM

If that was the last used entry, then it looks like the 'savedefault' function worked at least. Looks like a submenu item.
Does that string exist in boot.cfg?

If you select a different option, does the value change? (You may have to boot via another method to check this, so it doesn't get changed again)

Hangaber · 12-15-2016, 06:29 PM

This is now working for me with;

Code:

GRUB_DEFAULT=saved
GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT=true

In grub.cfg for a couple of custom entries, I had to add the 'savedefault' line to the menuentry sections to make it actually update grubenv when selected, as follows;

Code:

menuentry 'Some Other OS' ...blahblah... {
        savedefault
        load_video
(...etc)

Or in my situation, I'll modify my "/etc/grub.d/40_custom" so that it's added during a grub-mkconfig event.

(Unrelated) While I was there, I also fixed the 'locale/en.mo.gz not found' message before the grub menu appears;

Code:

cp /boot/grub/locale/en@quot.mo /boot/grub/locale/en.mo

frushiyama · 12-15-2016, 07:47 PM

The savedefault line on the menuentry part made it work.
Now my /etc/grub.d/40_custom is

Code:

#!/bin/sh
exec tail -n +3 $0
# This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries.  Simply type the
# menu entries you want to add after this comment.  Be careful not to change
# the 'exec tail' line above.

menuentry "W10" {
   savedefault
   set root='(hd0,gpt2)'
   chainloader /EFI/microsoft/Boot/bootmgfw.efi
}

menuentry "SL4C|<W@R3 on /dev/sda6" {
        savedefault
        set root=(hd0,6)
        linux  /boot/vmlinuz-generic-4.4.38 root=/dev/sda6 ro 
        initrd  /boot/initrd.gz
}

Thanks Hangaber!