Hello,
I have been trying to change the timing on the boot menu from 10 second to near unlimited seconds in the boot/grub/menu.lst. I am running Mint and as a newbie I do not know how to change a read only file either by the terminal or the GUI. Thanks very much and I hope its easy.

hi
have you done it as root user?
Please try in vi editor. Execute these commands in terminal:
You will start vi editor (very simple, but good).
Plaase the cursor when you need to change entry, press "i". Do all changes. Afterwards press ESC and then type ":wq" (w for wrtie and q for quit). If you don't want to write changes type ":q!"

You will find help for "vi" in Internet

regards
Rafal

Hi

Users can always change such read-only system files by becoming a superuser (a.k.a root), through typing

su

in the terminal (It can be very dangerous to be root, be careful, always type "exit" immediately when you are done with the superuser/root job).

You will then be prompt to give your superuser password --- I hope you have it. After successfully changing into a superuser, you now use your favourite editor like emacs, joe, vim, nano, kate, kwrite, etc. to edit the file /boot/grub/menu.lst by doing for example

joe /boot/grub/menu.lst

Change the value next to the keyword "timeout" from 10 to something else of your choice. I normally take 30 or 60. As you said these are seconds. Then safe the file and immediately do

exit

These will end the superuser session, and you are more safe.

I do not know how to set time there to "near unlimited". Do you mean near infinity? I am curious to know why you want the system to wait for almost forever before it boots up?

BTW: Which OS do you use? I ask this because some OSs like Mandriva have a easier GUI option to do these. I know a large number of our experts may not support the GUI option though.

Cheers --- have a wonderful festive season,
Isix

Ubuntu-based systems do not use su. One should use sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst instead.

hi,
go to /boot/grub/menu.lst and change the timeout from 10 to the time you want. Here is a complete tutorial on how to do that. I think this option works irrespective of distro...
http://linuxtuts.blogspot.com/2008/0...ut-before.html

lsix..."I do not know how to set time there to "near unlimited". Do you mean near infinity? I am curious to know why you want the system to wait for almost forever before it boots up?"...

HAHAHAHAHAH...Funny....LOL ..!!!

I may not use Mint, Ubuntu (on which it is based), or Gnome, but I know enough about them to know that jay73 is correct. -- su does not work in Ubuntu the way it does in other (normal) distros.
See http://www.linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4258
& https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo, which it references.

As to the "near unlimited" issue, just remember that GRUB timeout is set in seconds. I rarely use more than 65, but you might like 300 or even 600. If you do want "infinite", then comment out (w/ a '#') the timeout line.

While I deplore the Ubuntu decision to use sudo instead of su for root tasks, it is a fact of life & all of us asking or offering Linux help need to be aware of it. Those of us who answer need to know not only that the difference exists, but also which distros are Ubuntu based. On the helpee side, if you're using Ubuntu, an Ubuntu derivative, or any other distro that uses the Ubuntu pseudo-security model, you need to remember to substitute sudo -i, sudo -s, sudo su -, or sudo su for any su command you are told to use.

Actually, if you want GRUB to wait for user input, you can also set timeout to any negative value.

Look in your Synaptic Package Manager and search for startup-manager, load that to change time and what ever you need to change in your menu.lst.

Is startup-manager Ubuntu only? -- I can find it neither in MEPIS nor on the Debian site.

Thanks everyone for the help.

Thanks, I had tried this without the sudo

I have a dual boot with Windows XP and I don't necessarily want it to select Linux on start up

I am using Mint, which is a derivative of Ubuntu

I will try both of these

Ah cool, I will look for that