CrunchBang Linux 11 R20121015

Philip Newborough has announced the availability of a new development build of CrunchBang, a lightweight Debian-based distribution featuring the Openbox window manager: "It has been approximately three months since the previous 'Waldorf' images were built, so I figured the time was right to upload some updated builds. To be honest, I was tempted to wait until Debian 'Wheezy' migrates to stable before updating the builds, but Debian being Debian (released when ready), it could mean waiting a week, a month, or even a year. Anyhow, the new images contain some fixes to the installer that affected installations performed using DVD media. Personally, I tend to install via a USB stick, so I had not come across the bug myself, until somebody else mentioned it. The bug appeared as an error message just before the GRUB install screen, where it asked the user to insert an additional disk." Here is the full release announcement listing the most notable changes. Download (MD5): crunchbang-11-20130119-amd64.iso (751MB, torrent).

How To Boot An ISO File From Your Hard Drive Via Grub2 Under Ubuntu/Linux Mint

In this tutorial, we will see how to boot an iso file stored in your hard drive via the Grub2 boot menu. This tip is useful for users who don't have a live CD/DVD/USB, only the iso file of Ubuntu/Linux Mint. In this example, we will see how to boot from Ubuntu 12.10 iso file.

Getting Started

Create a directory named iso in your root folder using this command:

sudo mkdir /iso

Now move your iso file (ubuntu-12.10-desktop-i386.iso) to this folder. Cd to the folder containing your iso file and run this command:

sudo mv ubuntu-12.10-desktop-i386.iso /iso

Identify now your hard disk with this command from the terminal:

 sudo fdisk -l

For my system, the hard disk is mounted as /dev/sda1:

Edit now the grub.cfg file with this command:

sudo gedit /boot/grub/grub.cfg

At the end of the file, add these lines:

menuentry "Ubuntu 12.10 LiveCD" { 

    set root=(hd0,1) 

    loopback loop /iso/ubuntu-12.10-desktop-i386.iso 

    linux (loop)/casper/vmlinuz boot=casper iso-scan/filename=/iso/ubuntu-12.10-desktop-i386.iso noprompt noeject 

    initrd (loop)/casper/initrd.lz 

}

You can change "Ubuntu 12.10 LiveCD" to any name of your choice. For the "set root=(hd0,1)" option, I inserted the number "1" referring to my hard disk (dev/sda1). If your hard disk is mounted as /dev/sda2, then set "2", for /dev/sda5, set "5" and so on.

Save your file and exit. Then reboot your system and hold down the Shift key to bring up the Grub boot menu. As you can see, I can now boot into the Ubuntu 12.10 iso file stored in my hard drive from the Grub menu:

That's it!

How To Install/Upgrade To GRUB 2.00 From PPA On Ubuntu 12.04/Linux Mint 13

In this tutorial we will see how to upgrade/install GRUB 2.00 from PPA on a system running Ubuntu 12.04 (Precise Pangolin) and Linux Mint 13. Installing from PPA will be easier than installing manually from source because you may get unresolved errors.

This latest version brings more improvements, bug fixes and corrections. You can check the full changelog of GRUB 2.00 here.

GRUB 2.00 Installation

Open the terminal and run these commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:cjwatson/grub
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install grub2

Update now the GRUB2 boot loader with this command:

sudo update-grub2

You can now verify your current grub2 version with this command:

grub-install -v

Outputs returned for Ubuntu 12.04:

grub-install (GRUB) 2.00-2ubuntu1~ppa2~precise

Here is a screenshot of the GRUB 2.00 boot menu:

For any bug encountered, you can report it here.

Grub Customizer 3.0 Released

Grub Customizer is a graphical settings manager for GRUB2 and BURG.

Among the Grub Customizer features are:

• edit the menu entries (reorder, rename, add or remove entries)
• change the default boot entry
• change menu visibility and timeout
• disable recovery entries
• change GRUB resolution, menu colors or background image
• GRUB repair & configuration using a Live CD
• Advanced options like booting an ISO, changing kernel parameters and lots more

A new Grub Customizer version has been released today: 3.0, which brings the following new features:

• entries can be moved free now
• integrated settings dialog
• new partition chooser
• context menu
• multi selection
• trash instead of checkboxes
• entry editor
• graphical error handling
• reset functionality
• warning when trying to remove script - or system entries

Grub Customizer is considered a stable application, but be very careful when using it and make sure you know what you're doing! Messing with GRUB2/BURG can cause the system not to boot!

Install Grub Customizer in Ubuntu

The latest Grub Customizer is available for Ubuntu 12.10, 12.04, 11.10, 11.04, 10.10 and 10.04 users in a PPA and can be installed using the following commands:

 

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:danielrichter2007/grub-customizer
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install grub-customizer

For other Linux distributions, see THIS page.

If you find bugs, report them @ Launchpad.