Idle thoughts or question re: dual booting and grub default !?

[Mikkel L. Ellertson]

William Case wrote:
> Hi;
> 
> I have a dual boot system WindowsXP on /dev/sda; Fedora on /dev/sdb.
> 
> Some days I find myself switching between the two quite often.  I can
> also go weeks with no need of Windows.
> 
> I am not sure if what I propose is possible, but ...
> 
> I would like to create a script in Fedora, and a .bat in Windows that
> changes the default in grub when selected.  I would have a desktop
> launcher in both systems to be used for restarting.  The alogarithm
> would be something like what follows:
> 
>      1. set grub default to other OS
>      2. restart
> 
> Since re-booting takes a bit of time (particularly in WindowsXP), I
> could simply click my 'restart in other OS' icon and walk away for a
> fresh coffee or to make a phone call without having to catch the grub
> selection screen.  The normal shutdown and restart would remain the
> same.
> 
> Setting up a virtual machine is a solution but for much later for me.
> 
> I am looking for pointers or suggestions; tips and tricks; on how these
> scripts and batch files might be written; or even if they are possible
> at all.
> 
> I will take on the actual writing of them as a personal challenge.
> 
If you don't boot Windows often, and you normally want to boot Linux 
the next time you boot after running Windows, you could try Booting 
once-only setup in Grub. This is explained in detail in the Grub 
Info page, so I will not go into setup details. But what it does is 
tell Grub to boot a specific entry the next time you boot, and as 
part of the entry, it sets things back to the original default.

Note - it does not look like Fedora has the grub-set-default script 
file talked about, but your script could write the 
/boot/grub/default file. I have not used this under Fedora, but I 
have done it under Mandriva many times.

Another option, if you have ext2 support under windows, would be 
that not have the menu entry reset the default boot, but have a 
Windows script that changes the /boot/grub/default file.

In any case, you are going to want to change:
default=0
to
default saved

Mikkel
-- 

   Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!

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