Re: cannot set timeout in grub2

[Jordan Uggla]

On Mon, Jun 25, 2012 at 8:14 PM, Bob Morris <address@hidden> wrote:
> I updated a Dell PowerEdge 2950 from Ubuntu 10.04 to 12.04, going
> through each offered update. On the first, something whacked GRUB, but
> I recovered it with boot-repair. (What a fantastic resource!) I ran
> boot-repair from a LiveCD, that is from Ubuntu 12.04 Desktop CD
> running off the CD. (Note that the ubuntu on the hard drive at the
> point was 11.10.)
>
> After the successful boot-repair, the grub did not time out and I had
> to explicitly select the kernel from the menu after waiting as much as
> 5-10 min.  I opted to address this when I got all the way to Ubuntu
> 12.04. Each of the intermediate boots had the same issue, but all
> booted up all the way when I selected the first menu option.  Ubuntu,
> with Linux 2.6.35-32-server.
>
> With 12.04 running, I edited /etc/default/grub to contain
>
> GRUB_DEFAULT=0
> #GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0
> #GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=
> GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT_QUIET=true
> GRUB_TIMEOUT=10
> GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=`lsb_release -i -s 2> /dev/null || echo Debian`
> GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
> GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX=""
>
>
> and ran sudo update-grub
>
> No countdown appears on the grub menu, and nothing happens unless I
> select an entry and press enter.

This sounds like you've run into a problem with Ubuntu's "recordfail"
feature. Can you post the contents of /boot/grub/grubenv after a full
boot? (it should *not* contain "recordfail=1", but probably does).

>
> Now here's the final curiousity:
> The grub splash screen reports version 1.98+20100804+5ubuntu3.3 but
> grub-install -v reports 1.99-21ubuntu3.1

Then you need to make sure that grub-install is run against the proper
devices during upgrades of Ubuntu's grub-pc package. You can do this
by running "sudo dpkg-reconfigure grub-pc", this command will ask you
multiple questions, for the questions about linux cmdline simply leave
the settings at their default. For the question about install devices
make sure that any drives which your BIOS might boot from are selected
(and *no* partitions).

-- 
Jordan Uggla (Jordan_U on irc.freenode.net)