Grub Customizer and Nouveau

Support and Help
1

I am dual booting Ubuntu 25.04 with Windows 11 24H2. I do not use Windows but like some or most of us I got it free years ago, also I purchased a Pro license. All I do on the second Tuesday of every month is install cumulative update and cleanup system.

Grub Customizer when restored from Ubuntu 24.04 Aptik backup was messed up when restored on Ubuntu 25.04. I deleted Aptik backup files and did a fresh install of Ubuntu 25.04. Next I had to customize the system without installing Grub Customizer, and then backed up with Aptik.

Finally what is the right way to install Grub Customizer error free or is it not working properly on Ubuntu 25.04.

Lastly, I have been in previous version of Ubuntu adding this commandand line from the CLI:

sudo gedit /etc/default/grub

“nouveau.modeset=0”

Next to quite splash inside quotation marks. Do I still need to do this?

Gort

2

I would strongly recommend that you do not use Grub-Customizer which does nothing that can not be done in a much safer manner by manually editing the various grub configuration files already in your filesystem.

I know nothing about any problems related to dual booting Windows 11 and Grub Customizer but I am aware that Grub Customizer changes many of the configuration files into proxified versions meaning that undoing what you’ve done becomes very difficult.

Tell us exactly what you want your grub to do and we can probably tell you how best to do it without using GC and potentially causing more difficulties.

4 Likes
3

In addition to also strongly recommending against Grub Customizer, I would suggest not using a graphical editor to make changes.

Use nano instead like this:

sudo nano /etc/default/grub

Find the line with quiet splash and add nouveau.modeset=0 after it so the line looks like this:

GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash nouveau.modeset=0"

To save, Ctrl+O press Enter then Ctrl+X

Run sudo update-grub to complete the change.

3 Likes
4

I also suggest just editing grub yourself, not all that difficult once you learn with terminal editor.

What video card/chip?
Nouveau normally for very old nVidia chips that do not have a current nVidia driver.

lspci -nnk | grep -iA3 vga

3 Likes
5

Nouveau is already done and working.

Grub, this is how I want it to look like:

Ubuntu
Windows
Recovery

This is how it worked since Ubuntu 24.04 with Grub Customizer and previous versions.

Gort

6

That just means you were lucky, it is one of these tools that manipulate generated files owned by other software directly… Every time update-grub is run and you have some incompatible setting in one of the grub.d files you risk that it completely breaks your boot… (Note that update-grub is run by quite a few packages automatically)

4 Likes
7

Is Grub Customizer currently installed?

This can easily be done using the 40_custom configuration file which can be found here:
/etc/grub.d/40_custom

A sample entry might look like this:

menuentry 'Xubuntu' --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os {
    search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set=root 9078ea23-f973-44f7-baf4-ea6177ce660f
    linux /boot/vmlinuz root=UUID=9078ea23-f973-44f7-baf4-ea6177ce660f ro quiet splash
    initrd /boot/initrd.img
}

To find the UUID for the various partitions run lsblk -f

Note that each install needs a separate menu entry in the file.

Others may have better ways to do it, this is what worked for me.

After making changes run sudo update-grub and reboot.

8

So this is what I get so far;

sudo /etc/grub.d/40_custom
[sudo] password for wyatt:

This file provides an easy way to add custom menu entries. Simply type the

menu entries you want to add after this comment. Be careful not to change

the ‘exec tail’ line above

So how do I change Advanced option to Recovery and the Windows line to Windows only

Also want to remove menu entries and UEFI

Gort

9

That won’t work.

Edit the file like this: sudo nano /etc/grub.d/40_custom

When you are done with the entries, Ctrl+O then press Enter then Ctrl+X to exit.

Show us the output of lsblk -f please.

10

I’m sorry but I am not comfortable messing with grub.d/40_custom, one mistake and I am screwed.

But thanks for your help and suggestions
Gort

11

I would not advocate that you remove the UEFI Firmware setting entry from the grub menu.
One day, it will be your lifebelt.

1 Like
12

I have UEFI off in the BIOS, never trusted it!

Gort

13

We strongly advise against using Grub Customizer. I am sure the developer had the best of intentions but we have seen way too many problems with it over the years.

If you are not comfortable manually editing configuration files then perhaps this might be an alternative:
https://www.rodsbooks.com/refind/

I have never used it but I know many do and could offer a better perspective on its usage.

14

How do you boot into Windows 11 for cumulative updates with UEFI off?

15

From what I read it seems I have to enable EFI/UEFI to use. Sorry but I will never use these options. I just won’t use Grub Customizer anymore, no big deal.

Gort

16

But that means you will not be able to boot Win11, it requires UEFI for booting …

(and given that UEFI is now nearly 20y old and pretty much the default everywhere you should really re-consider that attitude, legacy BIOS is pretty dead since about a decade and most distros use UEFI and have way better integration with it than with ancient BIOS setups)

17

I just found out from HP the reason my Secure boot option in bios is greyed out is because this laptop is more than 4 years old. To update bios I have to reinstall Windows 10. HP does not support Windows 11 24H2 on my laptop. They also advised me not to purchase any third-party driver update software…they are known to steal system info. Nothing more I can do except by a new laptop with Windows 11. I am a disabled veteran and cannot afford to buy a new laptop with my disability income. I bought this one with pandemic money.

Gort

18

Nobody talked about secureboot …

You said you would never enable UEFI which has nothing to do with secureboot (apart from the fact that it makes secure booting possible it is not any further involved with it, UEFI just replaces the BIOS with something more modern)

19

It’s been a long time since I went into the BIOS I thought it was UEFI but it was secure boot, either way I can’t enable it.

I reinstalled Ubuntu 24.03 and restored with Aptik, Windows is gone.

Gort

1 Like
20

Secure Boot is something Microsoft contributed to the UEFI specifications and on most computers, Secure Boot can be enabled/disabled and windows will boot with it disabled as well as enabled. If you have windows installed on a gpt drive, then UEFI is required according to Microsoft. If you open a terminal in Ubuntu and run: sudo parted -l it will list drives/partitions and part of the output for each drive will be: Partition Table: ??? and in place of the ??? it will likely show gpt/dos. If it is gpt then windows is UEFI.

Since you have now decided to not use Grub Customizer is your problem with the graphics driver?