Changing
the way your computer boots - Boot Menu
NOTE :- QGRUBEditor
appears not to available in version 9.04 (Jaunty Jackalope) but works
with earlier versions (as far as I know). Manual editing for more
advanced users is covered in Appendix C.
By default the grub (boot)
menu will take you into the latest update of Ubuntu when it times out. If you
would prefer to boot into Windows by default and/or not always boot
into the latest Ubuntu installation, the easiest way is to use QGRUBEditor which has a rather nice GUI front end. Use Synaptic (System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager) with either it's name or "Grub Menu" in the Search box to find it to download and install.
When QGRUBEditor
is run it saves a backup copy of the menu list and then displays a list
of boot menu options and a number of ways to change which system boots
(with tabs for this and changing the appearance of the menu and general
settings). Individual entries may also be edited but for now we
will only deal with changing which operating system boots by default
and the menu's appearance. The screenshot below shows a typical
installation of Ubuntu 8.04.1 together with Windows XP in a dual-boot
setup. The XP item has been highlighted by clicking on it.
Now to set it as default, right click on it and choose Set As Default. This will now become the default OS.
Now to the other settings... Click on the GRUB Settings tab. The display produced is shown below. We can see the Default Entry set to Windows XP. The Timeout (seconds before the default OS starts) has been changed from 10 to 5 and the "Colors" have been changed from black and white to something more colourful.
To finish simply Exit the app. If any problem should arise you can Restore your backup by clicking the Restore button.
For more advanced users who prefer manual editing of menu.lst and those with multiple Ubuntu systems see Appendix C.
Updated 26 April 2009
