how to always get menu in grub?

[Tom Horsley]

I could spend the rest of the weekend trying to follow
the "logic" in all of the /etc/grub.d files, or
maybe I could ask and find someone who already
knows:

How the devil do I make grub on fedora 30 *always*
show the damn menu and *always* timeout for 5
seconds? (Instead of trying to be "helpful" :-).

[Andre Robatino]

From https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/HiddenGrubMenu#Detailed_Description : run the command "grub2-editenv - unset menu_auto_hide" as root (or via sudo).

[Sam Varshavchik]

Andre Robatino writes:
> From  
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/HiddenGrubMenu#Detailed_Description :  
> run the command "grub2heditenv - unset menu_auto_hide" as root (or via sudo).

Interesting.

In F29 and before, apparently all that's needed is

GRUB_TIMEOUT=5

in /etc/default/grub

That, apparently was all that's needed. After perusing grub2-editenv's man  
page, I have verified that I do have a /boot/grub2/grubenv, which is mostly  
sparse.

[Samuel Sieb]

On 5/3/19 8:30 PM, Sam Varshavchik wrote:
> In F29 and before, apparently all that's needed is
>
> GRUB_TIMEOUT=5
>
> in /etc/default/grub

That might still work.  You need to regenerate the grub config file 
after changing anything in there.
> That, apparently was all that's needed. After perusing grub2-editenv's 
> man page, I have verified that I do have a /boot/grub2/grubenv, which is 
> mostly sparse.

Everyone has that file, I think it's required.

[Tom Horsley]

On Fri, 03 May 2019 23:30:29 -0400
Sam Varshavchik wrote:
> In F29 and before, apparently all that's needed is
>
> GRUB_TIMEOUT=5
>
> in /etc/default/grub

Right. Every customization is located in /etc/default/grub
until now :-(.

I did go through the grub2 info file and read all the
descriptions of all the GRUB_* settings to influence
the way grub worked, and none of them would make it
always show the menu (though it sometimes showed the
menu anyway, which was very confusing).

Changing grubenv does seem to work. I've now got an rc.local
to change it every time I boot just in case some other
helpful feature changes it back :-).

[Tom H]

On Sat, May 4, 2019 at 5:14 AM Andre Robatino
 wrote:
> From https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/HiddenGrubMenu#Detailed_Description
> : run the command "grub2-editenv - unset menu_auto_hide" as root (or via sudo).

Oops. I misunderstood the question...

[Tom H]

On Sat, May 4, 2019 at 4:29 AM Tom Horsley  wrote:
> I could spend the rest of the weekend trying to follow the "logic"
> in all of the /etc/grub.d files, or maybe I could ask and find
> someone who already knows:
>
> How the devil do I make grub on fedora 30 *always* show the damn
> menu and *always* timeout for 5 seconds?

As an example, on my laptop, I run

# chmod -x /etc/grub.d/*

# vi /etc/grub.d/90-grub.sh
#!/bin/sh

cat <<EOF
# menu default entry
set default=0

# menu timeout
set timeout=2

# disk/partition
insmod part_gpt

# filesystem
insmod ext2

# /boot
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root ddffca8e-a36c-4afa-8162-2eb84ce8b03f

# kernel
insmod gzio

# video
set gfxmode=auto
terminal_input gfxterm
terminal_output gfxterm
insmod all_video
insmod gfxterm
loadfont /usr/share/grub/unicode.pf2
set locale_dir=$prefix/locale
set lang=en_US
insmod gettext

menuentry 'multi' {
linux /kernel root=UUID=2653b879-3c02-4d05-a678-315259e0e11f ro
initrd /ramfs
}

menuentry 'single' {
linux /kernel root=UUID=2653b879-3c02-4d05-a678-315259e0e11f ro single
initrd /ramfs
}

menuentry 'emergency' {
linux /kernel root=UUID=2653b879-3c02-4d05-a678-315259e0e11f ro emergency
initrd /ramfs
}

menuentry 'multi     [2]' {
linux /kernel2 root=UUID=2653b879-3c02-4d05-a678-315259e0e11f ro
initrd /ramfs2
}

menuentry 'single    [2]' {
linux /kernel2 root=UUID=2653b879-3c02-4d05-a678-315259e0e11f ro single
initrd /ramfs2
}

menuentry 'emergency [2]' {
linux /kernel2 root=UUID=2653b879-3c02-4d05-a678-315259e0e11f ro emergency
initrd /ramfs2
}

menuentry 'firmware' {
fwsetup
}

EOF

# chmod +x /etc/grub.d/90-grub.sh