I moved on to Ubuntu.
Why? Cause, i have started loving Linux, after working with Fedora. It feels great to have full control using the terminal. Now, my dad insists to have Vista too, so that my transition from Windows to Linux is smooth. I believe I have already shifted to Ubuntu, cause rarely do I login to Vista.
Now all this is on my laptop that I will be taking with me to my college. I have so many friends, who will consider that I am being rude if I don’t let the use the laptop for watching movies or playing games. (I am using my laptop for coding and web design, sometimes for songs, but no games! at least for now). So how do I do that? Well, most of my friends are bad at Linux, so I don’t need to worry about that, but still I have Vista and that shall be a problem.
I found a solution for this myself: Remove Vista Option from the boot loader! You might be thinking, then how do you access Vista!
That’s exactly what I am going to tell now.
To remove/edit the menu options, you need to edit this file.
/boot/grub/menu.lst
Before that make a backup file using the following command.
sudo cp /boot/grub/menu.lst /boot/grub/menu.lst.backup
Open your terminal. Type
sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
This should open the menu file. Scroll down and find something similar to this.
title Windows Vista Home Premium
root (hd0,0)
savedefault
makeactive
chainloader +1
It might vary depending on what you have installed and where you have installed. Comment them by adding a ‘#’ without quotes in front of each line. (Deleting them won’t be a good idea).
Save the file and try restarting. You won’t find the Vista option now!
Hey! now what do I do to boot Vista?
It’s simple. When the OS selection menu appears, press ‘c’ to enter the command line interface.
Type the following commands one by one.
root (hd0,0)
makeactive
chainloader +1
Note: Replace (hd0,0) with what was mentioned in the menu.lst file corresponding to Vista.
Finally type the command boot, and lo, Vista loads.
Now, that’s a geeky way. Provides access only to me and none else. One look and everyone thinks that only Ubuntu is installed, but peep a little more and hey! there is Vista too!.
Disclaimer: Helpful only if your friends are vista noobs and don’t know this alternative.
Hope that was helpful.
Yes, this article is very helpful, but if somebody is afraid of touching configuration files through the terminal or if it finds it complicated, you could always try the StartUp-Manager. Just go to the ‘System>Administration>Synaptic Package Manager’ and type startupmanager. Install it and then, run it — it should be in the ‘Administration’ places, also.
The StartUp-Manger will load itself as root. In the Timeout field, just lower the seconds down to as you wish. It is the same as described in this article.
Thanks Daniel. Thank you for the comment.
Thanks for the tip wstryder. I will surely try those options too, and later add it to the post. Thanks!
Or add the option “hiddenmenu” and “timeout 3″ to your menu.lst. Now when you boot your friends will only see “Press ESC to access grub” (or something similar) for three seconds only – they probably won’t hit ESC. Set timeout to 1 so you’ll really have to watch for it if you want to boot Windows.
Clever! While I have no actual use for this info (I’ve gone completely Free (as in freedom) software), I still got a chuckle out of it. Thank you
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