Dual Boot
 

Hello

My husband has managed to install Mint 13 after a dodgy moment with no file system defined and now has a dual boot system but the screen flashes through to fast to read. Can it be slowed down a bit?
I am afraid neither of us are of the computer gaming generation and require a bit longer to read stuff!
Cheers Margaret & Pete

Hi

Have a look in /var/log
There are some files have a look at boot.log and kern.log.
Is there a reason you want to read the screen?

You should be able to adjust the timout using the instructions given here:
http://linuxpoison.blogspot.tw/2010/...t-timeout.html

Not possible. If there is no filesystem defined, the computer would not boot up.
Do you refer to the messages which scroll up the screen as the system boots up? If so, it isn't really necessary to read those messages unless you are having problems with the system. If that's the case, there are log files in /var/log which record most of those messages, which you can read in any text file viewer.

I don't think Mint shows boot messages at all. It just shows a black screen, and then a splash screen. I was assuming the thread starter is referring to the grub menu.

I think joe 2000 has got it.
@Xstitcher you can probably get to the Terminal through Accessories. Do wish how to sudo explained? (the link says to "sudo gedit /etc/default/grub")

If your problem is that grub is being to quick for you to decide which os you are on, it is fairly simple. But, to answer your problem, I need to know the other system on your computer, and you need to download rescueatux and burn the iso to a cd/dvd, and follow my instructions, for with that you will be able to edit grub's configuration file to make it any amount of time you would like.

Thank you for the instructions but I was hoping for some thing like a pause button. We think there are four options and Linux is the top one but we didn't manage to read the others. The system is Linux Mint 13 Mate and the other operating system is Windows 7. I wondered if for example if you just pressed the down key when it started would it then "stop" giving the time needed to read the rest. I suppose next time it boots one of us will have to try and read line two and the other line three. Once we have read it and made a note the job is done. I don't suppose you can do a screen dump?
Cheers Margaret & Pete

Hi

The easiest way is to edit the /etc/default/grub file as root, as mention earlier

You can change the part that sayes
GRUB_TIMEOUT="change number to something higher e.g 20" save the file reboot

Also the file in /boot/grub/grub.cfg has what you are seeing in it

Hi

If you use the down arrow key as soon as the page appears, it will stop the grub screen just remebered

Press the down arrow key repeatedly. The GRUB menu should display. If the system does not boot and you also do not see a GRUB menu, try pressing Enter. That will usually boot Windows (if you pressed the down arrow key). You can also get a GRUB prompt by pressing the C key repeatedly.

If you are not seeing the GRUB menu at all then you probably need to change the GRUB configuration.

Look at this blog post that describes a console display problem with GRUB.

Fix Grub Loader in Mint 13

I also suggest that you look at this post where I provided instructions on repairing Windows and re-installing GRUB.

Repair Windows or Reinstall GRUB

Where the instructions tell you to use "grub-mkconfig" you may have to do these steps instead.

Find the following line of text, and remove the # in front of it:

Save and close the file (Ctrl+O, Ctrl+X), and then run:

If you are uncomfortable trying to troubleshoot GRUB you may want to repair Windows first. Then install GRUB to the Linux partition boot sector instead of the Master Boot Record. You need to use the advanced install for Linux to do that. For example, install GRUB to "/dev/sda2" instead of "/dev/sda". Then you can add GRUB to the Windows menu.

Adding Linux to the Windows7 boot menu

The above instructions are for LILO, but the same thing works for GRUB. You basically copy the boot sector from the Linux partition into a file. Then copy that file to the Windows root directory (the Windows NTFS partition). After that you can boot Windows and use the "BCDEDIT" command to create an "application bootsector" menu entry that will boot GRUB. The advantage to this method is that you won't break Windows booting even if Linux or GRUB has a problem.

Yes, if i know the system that controls grub, I cab give you instructions to restore and update the configuration, and if that does nit change the time, from the live dvd of rescueatux, login as root in the terminal, and then I would point you to the grub configuration file fit you to manually change the time to, I don't know, 30 seconds, at which point, if you hit the down arrow key during the 30 seconds, it will last infinity until you use up, down and then enter to choose the os.

In rescueatux, choose restore grub, follow the instructions, choose update configuration, follow the instructions then in the files, open the folder <linux mint partition>/boot/grub/ as root, edit the grub.cfg file to change whatever grub_timout is to a number like 10000, save, reboot, but the windows section may be lost, so boot into linux and run sudo update-grub if it is lost.

From the description, it does sound like the grub timeout.
See post #9 (no need for rescue disks).
Not sure about Mint, but on Centos its /boot/grub/grub.conf and the line is 'timeout=5'.
As above, change to eg 10 and reboot.

Like mentioned already above, as soon as the boot loader starts press the down arrow key. That will give you time to read the other options.

If you want to start a session with other OS just select it with the down or up arrows and hit enter to select.

Good luck to you

Hello

We have solved the problem by using the down arrow and then flicking up and down while I wrote all the options down. The first two are the linux generic then recovery. There are then two called memory test then two windows 7 ones. The only problem with those was that it did not say which was recovery. We assumed the first must be the "normal" one - this proved to be the case. Thanks for all your sugestions.
Glad my simple idea proved right and you confirmed it would work Spikey0011.

Cheers Margaret