Dual-booting MEPIS and WinXP, I want Grub to default to WinXP
 

Woohoo! Looks like I just pulled off my first Linux installation without fragging WinXP. I love that QTPartition is free, and all the Windows partition managers want to charge $40 to $120. :cool:

I installed SimplyMEPIS 3.3.1, which comes with Grub.

One minor annoyance: I have a wireless USB mouse/keyboard combo. Linux apparently loads Grub before it loads any USB drivers, so I can't use my keyboard to select different options in the boot menu. I have a PS/2 adapter, but I sure wish Grub worked with USB.

But here's my real question: I want to change the Grub options so that WindowsXP is the default selection. That is, after 10 seconds of no key pressing it will launch XP rather than launching MEPIS. How can I do this?

Thanks.

Look for /boot/grub/grub.conf (or simply for grub.conf). Take notice of which option is your WinXP, if there are only 2 entries and Mepis is your first one (that would be 0) then WinXP would be 1. Right? At the beginning of the file theres a line that reads "default 0" change it to 1 or whatever number WinXP is. Thats it.

jjf, You'll need to edit the file boot/grub/menu.lst as root. Here's what mine looks like. You need to move the Windows section up above the Mepis section. Just cut and paste the Windows section in above the Mepis section. Your hard drive setup may be different than mine, so just use mine as an example, edit your own menu.lst file. Make a backup copy before you have at it, so you can repair it easily if something goes wrong. The post by mebrelith is correct for some distros, Fedora works this way, but Mepis is different. Good luck!

Chris

timeout 5
color cyan/blue white/blue
foreground ffffff
background 0639a1
gfxmenu /boot/grub/message

title Windows at hda1
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

title MEPIS at hdb6, kernel 2.6.10
kernel (hd1,5)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.10 root=/dev/hdb6 nomce quiet splash=verbose vga=791
initrd (hd1,5)/boot/initrd.splash


title MEMTEST
kernel /boot/memtest86.bin

I agree with sprintman, my file path is:hda2 root; file:/boot/grub
look for menu.1st, open it and cut and paste just the whole section for your windows , and put it on top of the mepis section that will change the boot screen to read windows partition first, dont forget you need to login as root to change this...hope this helps...


timeout 15
color cyan/blue white/blue
foreground ffffff
background 0639a1
gfxmenu /boot/grub/message

title Windows at hda1
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1

title MEPIS at hda2, kernel 2.4.29
kernel (hd0,1)/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.29 root=/dev/hda2 nomce quiet splash=verbose vga=791 hdc=ide-scsi hdd=ide-scsi
initrd (hd0,1)/boot/initrd.splash


title MEMTEST
kernel /boot/memtest86.bin

I also agree with sprintman. In my system - my file path is:hda2 root; file:/boot/grub. Log-in as 'root' FIRST - look for menu.1st, open it and edit it - you really only need to add the following as shown in my example below - 'default = 1' and 'savedefault'

------------------------------

timeout 15
color cyan/blue white/blue
foreground ffffff
background 0639a1
splashimage /boot/grub/boot.xpm.gz
default = 0

title MEPIS, kernel 2.6.10
kernel (hd1,0)/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.10 root=/dev/hdb1 nomce nopcmcia vga=788 psmouse.proto=imps quiet splash=verbose
initrd (hd1,0)/boot/initrd.splash
savedefault

title Windows XP Pro
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
chainloader +1
savedefault

title Windows 98
rootnoverify (hd0,1)
chainloader +1
savedefault

--------------------------------
Hope this helps!

Oz-Rod

Hrmmm... aint it easier to edit grub.conf?

Agree. grub.conf is the file intended for customizations.

Well yes - but it depends on what distro you run - mine is Debian based so the relevant 'boot' file is - menu.lst.

For Redhat based - it probably is different - someone maybe able to clarify.

Oz-Rod

grub.conf is generally a symlink to menu.lst. Either way you are editing the same file.

That is ridiculous. Do you not think it is easier to simply change "default 0" to "default 1"?