Just getting started with Linux. Does Linux have a routine/program to run batch files like DOS does with bat files?

My question pertains to making the menu.lst boot to XP first and second to Ubuntu... I got it but I would think a simple two line bat to open it as writable then do the cut and paste for the boot sequence. Finally a one line bat to change menu.lst back to read only.

The reason I am asking is that most patches I see must be run in terminal mode. If these patches could be copy/cut and paste into a (bat) file and run it would be easier than running in terminal mode and doing all that typing and correcting my mistakes when looking back and forth from the information I am typing.

The *nix equivalent of bat files is shell scripts. In Linux, the shell is usually bash, so those would be bash scripts.

Like bat files, bash scripts mimic closely what you'd type on a command line. For an intro to bash, google this:

Please do not read what's in the following box:

Hope this helps. The first part of this, anyway.

If you are only just getting started with Linux, you might be best, at this early stage, not to concentrate on Shell Scripts until you get a bit of a feel for the whole Linux thing. A particularly good book, that will bring you into shell scripting in a logical and timely manner - by giving you the preliminary background you'll need first - is Paul Sheer's "Rute Users Tutorial and Exposition" For a free electronic copy: http://www.linux-books.us/gnoppix_0001.php
When you have studied this excellent book (don't be put off by its age by the way) I suggest you work through a good few wee exercises, as suggested by the author, before trying to do your own little exercise - to get a bit of a feel for the idea of writing and executing scripts. From my experience they are not exactly like DOS bat files because relative to DOS, there are a huge number of very precise and powerful variations in what you can do. Good hunting!

Phidor.

It's perfectly possible to write small scripts to mess around with menu.lst. Rather than manipulate the contents of the file, the easiest thing is to just have a couple versions of the file and copy the desired version to menu.lst. For example, you could have one version which defaults to Windows and another version which defaults to Linux.

However, no bash script will run before Linux is booted up. Grub is a very small bootloader utility program which does NOT include bash. If you want some fancy bootloader logic, then you'll need to customize something more sophisticated than just grub. This isn't really a newbie project.

Anyway, menu.lst is writeable by default, by the root superuser. There's no need to make it read-only.

Personally, I always use the "default saved" option in menu.lst when dual booting. That way, in defaults to booting up the OS which was booted up last time.

Hey thanks to all three of you..... what a pleasure to receive such simple but knowledgeable feedback.

I have already started the Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition before I am responding.

Thanks again.

I'll be back

Shell scripts are analogous to DOS batch (.bat) files. That is, shell scripts are simply text files (created with any text editor) that contain a series of commands. These commands can be Linux OS commands, commands that run programs, commands that "call" other scripts, or any combination of these. That way you just execute the script every time you want to accomplish a task or process rather than typing in all the commands by hand every time.
(If you're experienced with DOS, you may want to check out www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/dosbatch.html for a comparison of DOS-to-Linux batch file statements and shell commands.)
As such, the various shells in Linux are not only a user interfaces but kind of like programming languages as well. The Korn shell is considered the best shell for programming on UNIX systems and the Linux Bash shell incorporates many of the Korn shell's functionality.

Thanks for the feedback.