Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in
Your question
Solved

need to remove countdown timer from dual boot Kali Linux and Windows 7

Tags:
  • Windows 7
  • Dual Boot
  • Linux
Last response: in Linux/Free BSD
Share
September 11, 2014 10:31:51 AM

Hi there. I know its a hardware forum, but since I found people asking Linux questions here also, therefore I'm putting up my question too.

So my question is, how can I remove the countdown timer from dual boot Kali Linux & Windows 7 boot menu.

I installed Kali over Windows 7 yesterday and its working fine. The problem is just that there is a 5 second countdown timer and then it boots into Kali by default as I forget and miss to select windows within time.

So I want to remove the timer completely so that I may select to boot the OS of choice without having to hurry up. Is it possible?

More about : remove countdown timer dual boot kali linux windows

a b $ Windows 7
a b 5 Linux
September 11, 2014 10:50:49 AM

Timeout is configured in GRUB.
m
0
l
Related resources

Best solution

September 11, 2014 11:31:44 AM

Yes, its possible, and quite easy. All you need is to customize the grub.cfg file.

Login as Super User (root privilege) and open "/boot/grub/grub.cfg" using leafpad or any other text editor.

Now search for "set timer=5" and DELETE the whole line and save the file.

Now just reboot your computer and you'll see the OS selection menu will stay there untill you manually select one.

Note: you must DELETE the line "set timer=5". Don't change the timer to "0" else the first OS in the list (Kali) will be booted directly.

Good luck.
Share
a b $ Windows 7
a b 5 Linux
September 11, 2014 11:33:55 AM

ha0 said:
Yes, its possible, and quite easy. All you need is to customize the grub.cfg file.

Login as Super User (root privilege) and open "/boot/grub/grub.cfg" using leafpad or any other text editor.

Now search for "set timer=5" and DELETE the whole line and save the file.

Now just reboot your computer and you'll see the OS selection menu will stay there untill you manually select one.

Note: you must DELETE the line "set timer=5". Don't change the timer to "0" else the first OS in the list (Kali) will be booted directly.

Good luck.

Works for legacy GRUB (0.98) but not GRUB2 which most, if not all distributions are using these days.
m
0
l
September 11, 2014 12:16:33 PM

which bootloader r u using -- grub or windows bootmgr??
m
0
l
September 11, 2014 12:26:46 PM

Thanks all of you for your help but ha0's solution worked like a charm for me. - deleted that line and now I have what I wanted. Thanks a lot.
m
0
l
a b $ Windows 7
a b 5 Linux
September 11, 2014 12:31:51 PM

Please please do not make a habit out of directly editing your grub.conf file. It is not safe to do so. Even says so in the grub.conf file its self!

Quote:
[root@hplaptop grub]# cat grub.cfg
#
# DO NOT EDIT THIS FILE
#
# It is automatically generated by grub-mkconfig using templates
# from /etc/grub.d and settings from /etc/default/grub
#
m
0
l
September 12, 2014 11:28:55 AM

I totally agree with ex_bubblehead and skittle as to not mess with the GRUB configuration file as it can mess up the boot loader completely. But as ajay12131 asked it for Kali Linux, I was so sure for I myself had edited it on my Kali and Windows 8.1 dual boot and it worked for me perfectly (however I backed up the original file). In face, I've even customized it a little more. I've deleted unused tests from the loader menu, and also renamed the OS to more specific ones like "Windows 8.1 Pro" from "Windows 8 loader" and "Kali Linux" from "Debian/Kali......." and its working absolutely fine.

Note: This method works 100% for Kali Linux 1.0.6 (may/may not work with latest one).
m
0
l
!