I cannot get into the grub menu in order to boot on an earlier kernel.

I have holding down Esc or Shift while booting up but it goes straight
to the BIOS screen.

I left a crie de coeur on the Linux Mint forum but I wanted to try for
the earliest answer.

TIA

--
Linux Mint 21.3 kernel version 5.15.0-105-generic Cinnamon 6.0.4
AMD Ryzen 7 7700, Radeon RX 6600, 32GB DDR5, 1TB SSD, 2TB Barracuda

On 4/21/24 01:56 PM, pinnerite wrote:
> I cannot get into the grub menu in order to boot on an earlier kernel.
>
> I have holding down Esc or Shift while booting up but it goes straight
> to the BIOS screen.
>
> I left a crie de coeur on the Linux Mint forum but I wanted to try for
> the earliest answer.
>
> TIA
>
You grub does not ordinarily display on boot?
In other words it's hidden?
--
Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon 6.0.4 Kernel 5.15.0-105-generic
Al

On 4/21/2024 1:56 PM, pinnerite wrote:
> I cannot get into the grub menu in order to boot on an earlier kernel.
>
> I have holding down Esc or Shift while booting up but it goes straight
> to the BIOS screen.
>
> I left a crie de coeur on the Linux Mint forum but I wanted to try for
> the earliest answer.
>
> TIA
>

How about the Boot Repair CD ?

*******

https://pimylifeup.com/ubuntu-recovery-mode/

"2. To get to the grub menu, which we will use to boot into recovery mode,
you must press a particular key during start-up.

For most people, you must continually press the ESC key on your keyboard during start-up [UEFI]

If you are running an older, non-UEFI system, you must instead press the SHIFT key continually.

Once you are certain of the key you need to press, turn your Ubuntu device back on and begin
pressing the correct key. If you see the Ubuntu splash screen, you must try again.
"

The difference being, that SHIFT is a modifier key.

Whereas <esc> is a regular matrix key press, which means
you might have to fiddle/hammer it.

Also, not in this particular case, but I've run into
instructions to press a particular key, and the particular key if
pressed too early, is judged to be a BIOS-modification key. This
means your timing has to be good to extremely-good to get the
actual proper response.

The shortest design window I've seen
for a "key-press", is a timing window only one second wide,
on an Insyde-branded BIOS. I can never nail that on the first
try, and it takes a minimum of two tries.

It would be nice, if a visual indicator indicated "start of timing window"
and "end of timing window", so the user can learn the timing needed.

But where would the fun be, if they made it too easy.

Paul

On Sun, 21 Apr 2024 18:56:22 +0100
pinnerite <pinnerite@gmail.com> wrote:

> I cannot get into the grub menu in order to boot on an earlier kernel.
>
> I have holding down Esc or Shift while booting up but it goes straight
> to the BIOS screen.
>
> I left a crie de coeur on the Linux Mint forum but I wanted to try for
> the earliest answer.
>
> TIA
>

I could not get in whatever I tried, so I edited /etc/default/grub
to show the menu and delay 15 seconds. I can live with that but
it is a real annoyance.

The system must have been modified by a civil servant.

Linux Mint 21.3 kernel version 5.15.0-105-generic Cinnamon 6.0.4
AMD Ryzen 7 7700, Radeon RX 6600, 32GB DDR5, 1TB SSD, 2TB Barracuda

On 4/22/2024 5:42 AM, pinnerite wrote:
> On Sun, 21 Apr 2024 18:56:22 +0100
> pinnerite <pinnerite@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I cannot get into the grub menu in order to boot on an earlier kernel.
>>
>> I have holding down Esc or Shift while booting up but it goes straight
>> to the BIOS screen.
>>
>> I left a crie de coeur on the Linux Mint forum but I wanted to try for
>> the earliest answer.
>>
>> TIA
>>
>
> I could not get in whatever I tried, so I edited /etc/default/grub
> to show the menu and delay 15 seconds. I can live with that but
> it is a real annoyance.
>
> The system must have been modified by a civil servant.
>
>
> Linux Mint 21.3 kernel version 5.15.0-105-generic Cinnamon 6.0.4
> AMD Ryzen 7 7700, Radeon RX 6600, 32GB DDR5, 1TB SSD, 2TB Barracuda

I think your Menu choice *could* get zapped. Maybe when
the GRUB package itself is updated, something like that happens.
Neatly dressed civil servant enters the room and resets the interface.

I've also seen cases where recovery kernels are accumulating (for fallback)
and the Menu is added automatically and appears at startup, just so
if the new kernel is a clunker, you can access the previous kernel in
no time at all.

Many things are possible.

Paul

On 4/22/24 05:42 AM, pinnerite wrote:
> On Sun, 21 Apr 2024 18:56:22 +0100
> pinnerite <pinnerite@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I could not get in whatever I tried, so I edited /etc/default/grub
> to show the menu and delay 15 seconds. I can live with that but
> it is a real annoyance.
>
> The system must have been modified by a civil servant.
>
>
> Linux Mint 21.3 kernel version 5.15.0-105-generic Cinnamon 6.0.4
> AMD Ryzen 7 7700, Radeon RX 6600, 32GB DDR5, 1TB SSD, 2TB Barracuda
>
>
I use my grub as my default boot for multi-boot and have the delay only 3 seconds. That's long
enough for me to hit any key on the keyboard to stop the launch and pic another OS, also short
enough not to be a great annoyance IMHO.
I also set grub to remember the last option on the menu so if I'm rebooting Windows for instance, it
will keep rebooting Windows without any interaction. Nice for those many reboots Windows does to
make updates.

GRUB_DEFAULT=saved
GRUB_SAVEDEFAULT=true
#GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=hidden
GRUB_TIMEOUT=3

--
Linux Mint 21.3 Cinnamon 6.0.4 Kernel 5.15.0-105-generic
Al