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aldtech 03-01-2013 10:25 AM

Covert Dual Boot
 
Covert Dual Boot

How would you go about creating a dual boot system (Linux/Win 7) that does not display a boot OS selection screen? I currently have a dual booting laptop (D630) With PCLOS and Win 7, when ever it boots it displays the boot loader menu and defaults to Win7 within 20 seconds if no choice is made. What I would like to do is eliminate that screen, edit the boot selection to 10 seconds (+/-) defaulting to Win7 but setting a trigger (space bar ?) that would present the boot selection screen and thus allow me to access my Linux distribution.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

/ald

Dman58 03-01-2013 11:23 AM

How about a USB key that boots the installation only when it's inserted?

sonu.sgsits08 03-01-2013 11:35 AM

you need to edit grub.cfg file....
set default to linux or winodws whichever your want and set timeout=0 then it will not display boot selection
option.

aldtech 03-01-2013 11:41 AM

Dman58
While that and/or a boot cd would do the job, I would rather it be more seamless without having to use a USB port or the CD drive. The system already dual boots successfully, I just want to eliminate the boot loader screen until I want to see it so that others who might boot my laptop would not know an alternate choice is available and eliminating the possibility of someone from being able to tinker with or inadvertently disable/corrupt my Linux install.

Thanks for the suggestion.

/ald

aldtech 03-01-2013 11:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sonu.sgsits08 (Post 4902581)
you need to edit grub.cfg file....
set default to linux or winodws whichever your want and set timeout=0 then it will not display boot selection
option.

Yes you are right but then I can not interrupt to select the other OS.

/ald

yancek 03-01-2013 03:36 PM

Is your release of PCLinuxOS still using Grub Legacy? If so, you should have a #hiddenmenu entry line in menu.lst. If you don't, put it in just below the timeout entry. Remove the hash mark (#) from the line and you won't see the menu. If you leave the timeout at 10 or whatever you have it set to, it will boot to the default after that time. Or you can hit the Enter key to boot the default immediately. You would need to know which entry in the menu your windows install is so that if it is the third entry, you would hit the arrow key twice at boot to get to the third entry (windows). There might be a better way to do this but, I can't think of anything off hand.

I tested this on PCLinuxOS with menu.lst and it does not work. The menu is hidden but a message shows saying hit the Esc key to see the menu which defeats your purpose. There is a countdown and if no action is taken, it boots the default entry. Maybe someone else will come up with something.

If you have Grub2, making the changes will use different files.


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