Reflexes of a turtle

[flawedreality5]

Hey everyone,

I'm running an XP/Fedora Core 3 dual boot and the GRUB is driving me insane. It has a 3 second count down to choose which OS you want to boot into or it will auto load Linux. I use XP much more often. By the time my POS monitor actually warms up, I missed my chance to load XP and have to restart to catch it again. How do i change the selection time? I would assume its in the grub.conf file but i'm new to this and don't know what to do. Please help.

Thanks!

[ZeratulsAvenger]

What I would do is search for the grub.conf(/boot/grub/grub.conf?) file, edit it with vi or something, and search for a line that is similar to "timeout=3" or something. Change it to 10, 25, 50, whatever. I guess the trial and error works just as well as a search on Google, in my opinion.

Hope it works or someone comes along with specific info for you.

[rightcoast]

commenting the line out with # before the timeout line should stop the countdown altogether. Just edit the grub.conf file with a higher number like ZeratulsAvenger suggested or comment it out if you want no countdown at all.
HTH

[flawedreality5]

Thanks guys. I'll give it a shot!

[flawedreality5]

Yep, It worked.

For future reference for new linux users like myself...
Edit the grub.conf file with the Vi editor.
You need root accessibility
Type SU in the terminal hit enter and enter the root password you set up when installing linux
Open the file with the command line "Vi /boot/grub/grub.conf" in the terminal and edit the "timeout=5" to a different number or comment it out like Rightcoast said with "#" (i commented it out).
Save and enjoy no count down in Grub!

[rightcoast]

Let me add one thing 2pointOvento. Vi is hard to learn to use really. For a Linux novice ( like me) , You should really use GEdit. It does the same things, can do plain text and some minor formatting, plus it's got a GUI. Fast and lean too.

Way easier for pretty much anyone in the world, not just Newbs

Great work, and nice how-to for others to find.

[flawedreality5]

Thank you. I'll check out that program. But i used Vi because i'm actually learning that right now in school in my Advanced Network Server/Unix course (Computer Networking major ) and i figured I could put a little knowledge from that to good use. But you are totally right. It is really hard to learn and you can get frustrated easily. It's not for beginners that don't have quick access to a helpful book, but i have my book from class to help me. Even still, it's an archaic interface and not at all user friendly. Go with Rightcoast's suggestion to all linux newbies.

Goodnight everyone

[ZeratulsAvenger]

I always tought that Vi was simple in its working... I guess that was from me being stuck at the terminal with no GUI to play with for awhile. Personally I wouldn't say that someone shouldn't use it, as it really isn't that difficult to do anything... try a few keys, read the help section... It all comes together better. I have bountiful amounts of time though, so I can't complain rifling though a few man pages.