Clarify which kernel is updated in Grub

Something in /etc/grub.d/10_linux might do the trick ?

What about just not showing the kernel choice? The topmost is mostly right anyway.

If you are a normal user, have a stable system and install tested kernels, you are not likely to need to choose at all. Seeing this dialog every time on startup (with a countdown and a list of choices) will make a big question mark pop up above your head. 10 seconds long, every startup.

Compare that to the few times where you actually need to choose another kernel. At the point when you need to do that you probably don’t know it has to do with this kernel thing and you need to ask for help anyway. When you tell them there is no such thing as a list before the Ubuntu logo appears, they’ll tell you you need to hold shift to see it (is it shift? I don’t know, don’t remember the last time I needed it.)

I'd love to see a config that flips the Grub list between all kernels, like now, and OSs only (newest kernel from each). We shouldn't remove the ability to make a full list, but I really doubt the average users needs to run a backup kernel, ever.

I wasn't aware that grub could have hidden entries. If it can, that would be the best option. Having just one entry per operating system, with an option below to list more kernels would be ideal.

From menu.lst:

## controls how many kernels should be put into the menu.lst
## only counts the first occurence of a kernel, not the
## alternative kernel options
## e.g. howmany=all
## howmany=7
# howmany=all

Thank you for taking the time to report this issue. However, it would not be helpful to tell users what kernel was updated last during boot. Adding more technical text to something that is already too technical is only going to make things more confusing.
The average users does not know what a kernel is. Whenever possible, Grub should be hidden to the users and not show itself.

Another reason why this wouldn't be a valid paper cut is that it is not trivial to fix.

Therefore I'm marking this bug as Invalid in the One Hundred Paper Cuts project. I'm also closing the Grub task as Invalid, because of the same two reasons. It is more a feature request than a proper bug or paper cut, and therefore should be discussed elsewhere, most preferably upstream.

Question: In Maverick 10.10, what is the default number of kernels displayed in grub? If update manager installs a new kernel, will the old kernel still show up in the grub list?

@Daniel
falken@wopr:/tmp$ cat /boot/grub/menu.lst|grep howma
## e.g. howmany=all
## howmany=7
# howmany=all
falken@wopr:/tmp$
so all of them I guess

Also, for people who don't follow #241368 - my script to implement automatically only keep the last N kernels is fairly complete.

I agree that simply removing the old kernels from the list is the ideal solution. However, if that is not implemented, continuing to have a long list of multiple kernels on the grub menu is very confusing to casual users.

Is it possible to implement something like Alexander Lancey mentioned above? Is it possible to list just the OS(s) in the grub menu, and offer a sub-menu option for multiple Ubuntu kernels? Should that be a new bug entry?

Making GRUB have those submenus would be a nice solution, but it is too complicated for a bug report here. I would discuss it somewhere else.

I've created a new bug entry for listing only one kernel for Ubuntu in grub (Bug #680156).

Actually, I think submenus are the perfect solution for this bug. I'm going to mark both this bug and Daniel's new bug as duplicates of bug 540452. :-)

Sense: please don't mark feature requests as invalid. We have an Importance field for that.