Sometimes, you may want to hide this menu (ie, go straight to the login screen) or show it if it is hidden or change the amount of time it stays up.
This article shows you how to change the above parameters. While you can use packages such as "start up manager" to do your changes, I wanted to edit the configuration files manually just so that we can get a bit of practice on how to use the terminal window and editing text files :)
Before we begin, a warning please:
Be very careful when you are making changes to this file. It is possible that if you accidently overwrite, or delete lines in here, your GRUB menu may get corrupted. So follow the instructions carefully.
How to Show or Hide the GRUB Menu in Ubuntu Linux:
In order to do this, log into your Linux sytem (We’re using Ubuntu here so our text editor will be gedit. For others, it may be nano or vi, etc) and open up the terminal window.
Step 1 – click on Programs –> Accessories –> Terminal Client. A window will open up.
Step 2 – type in the following and hit enter:
sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst
You will get a password prompt. Enter your root password here. This is the password you would have set up when installing the system and is also known as the admin password.
The command sudo simply gives your administration rights as the file you will be editing is a "system" one.
Once you have entered the password correctly, your text editor will open up as below:
Step 3 – scroll down the page until you see the following section:
## hiddenmenu
# Hides the menu by default (press ESC to see the menu)
hiddenmenu
To show the GRUB menu, put a “#” in front of the third line.. The “#” means that that line will be ignored by the application and so the line is not run and the menu is not hidden.
To hide the GRUB menu, ensure that the third line above doesn’t have a “#” in front of it.
Step 4 – Save the file and close the text editor. Reboot your machine and the menu should appear (or not) based on your settings above :)
How to change the timeout on the GRUB Menu
Right, so we may have the menu appearing, but (if you are like me), you may wish to change the amount of time it stays up before it chooses the default OS.
Lets start. Do Steps 1 and 2 above again. So we start with you on Linux having your menu.lst file open in a text editor.
Step 3 – find the following line in the window:
## timeout sec
# Set a timeout, in SEC seconds, before automatically booting the default entry
# (normally the first entry defined).
timeout 30 <— the number here may be different
Step 4 – the number after the “timeout” line (fourth line above) dictates that amount of time in seconds the menu will stay up for. Feel free to change that number to something larger or smaller depending on your requirements.
Step 5 – Save the file, and exit the text editor by closing the window. Feel fee to close the terminal window too.
Thats pretty much it. Reboot and the GRUB menu should now be shown for as long as your defined it
]]>Note: putting a “#” in front of the “timeout 30″ line will comment it out and not make it run. This will mean that the computer will not choose any default options and will wait for you to choose one before loading. Effectively removes the “timeout”.
There are many reasons to connect to your home pc while you are at work. And there are many methods. As a lot of people have Windows Vista or XP at home, methods such are Remote Desktop Connections may work well, but can require fiddling with firewalls, and configuration knowledge that most of us technology newbies may not know much about.
Connecting via RDP (Remote Desktop) also “takes over” the PC at home so its not suitable for desktop sharing (ie, there is someone at home looking at what you are doing). The PC is effectively “locked out” while you are connected remotely to it. This is frequently the case when my wife needs a little help in doing something and I just can’t talk her through on the phone.
This is also valuable when “assisting” people such as parents or grandparents. Have you tried talking your grandparents through setting up their email application at home? If you have, then you may understand the pain heh.
So what is GBridge? Its an application that sits on both your work pc and home pc and allows you to remotely control one or the other. It has many other uses such as file sharing etc, but the purpose of this article is to detail out how to get the remote desktop sharing working. You can go here for additional information about its functions if you are interested.
Anyway, lets begin.
On the Home PC
Step 1
Navigate to http://www.gbridge.com/ and download and install the application. I’m assuming you know how to install applications. Feel free to email me if you need further details. Once installed, run the application. It should come up with a dialog box similar to below: Click on "Log On" to log onto GBridge. Once you are connected, you will then need to set up your VNC settings. Click on DesktopShare and a menu such as below will pop up:
Step 2
Enter your Gmail user id and password as well as a "Hostname" – the hostname will be used to identify your "pc". Set it to "remember me" and "auto start" so that its always connected when your pc is switched on. You can always move your mouse over the text boxes to see a full explanation of each field. Step 3
Click on "Configure Gbridge DesktopShare (VNC)… to see the following window: 
Select the options as per the screenshot above. Also, set up a DesktopShare Password. Now, this will be the password you’ll be entering at work when you want to remote into your home pc. As per the recommendation, I’d make sure that this password is different from your Gmail password.
That’s pretty much it for configuring it at home. As a last step, ensure that DesktopShare works by clicking on DesktopShare button and selecting "Test Gbridge DesktopShare On this Computer…". This will display the following window:
Hit Ok and be prepared for a whole bunch of windows opening up one within the other. If you get a warning on your Firewall, now is the time to "Allow" the application and ensure that it is not blocked by your firewall. Once finished, it will tell you that the self-test is done and you are basically sorted for your Home PC 8-)
On your Work PC
Follow steps 1 to 3 for your work PC ensuring the following:
- you must be logged onto your work pc with the same Gmail user id. This will not work if you have a different Gmail user id at work!.
- On Step 2, on your work machine, ensure the host-name is set to what you want to call your work machine. In my case, I chose “dee-work” as my work machine host-name.
Put your password in and hit OK.
Tips
- Set up a Gmail account that you can use when setting up GBridge for your parents/grandparents/family/friend etc. Then when they need assistance, you can simply log onto your GBridge, using that account and then be able to remote into their desktop to help them :)
- If they have their own Gmail account, then you can add them to your "Friends" list (and vice versa) and do desktop sharing that way. This is slightly more complicated than adding yourself and if asked, i can set up an article that details how to do this.