Remove Unused Grub2 Entries

I had to reinstall my Linux Mint 9 Isadora after messing with a new copy of Windows XP. Once the whole thing was complete. I ended up with two extra kernel versions that weren’t really installed but were still listed in the boot menu. I ignored it for the longest time until I asked myself today.

How do I remove unwanted Grub2 entries?
What happens if the entries are there but the kernel is not actually installed in Synaptic?

I looked around the web and found that most sites say the same thing. I did not want to manually edit the Grub2 configuration file because that would still leave the headers in my system. And I’m a bit OC when it comes to my toys. So I played around with it a bit and found a simple solution.

1) Find out the current kernel version by opening the Terminal and running: uname -r
2) Take note of the result. This command gave me “2.6.32-25-generic”.
3) Open Synaptic and then search for the 4 digits. For example, “2.6.32″.
4) Install the “ghost” kernel versions : Check the “Mark for Installation” box and hit “Apply”.
5) Opened terminal and run: sudo update-grub2
6) Uninstall the kernel versions : Check the “Mark for Complete Removal” box and hit “Apply”.
7) Go back to the Terminal and ran: sudo update-grub2

Linux Mint 9 Isadora is based on Linux Ubuntu 10.04 Lucid Lynx. I am pretty sure that the same set of instructions can be used for it too. Using these steps, I’ve removed everything from the Grub2 menu except the two latest kernel versions, the Memtest and the Windows entry. I hope this works for anyone else with the same issue.

 

Multimedia for Intrepid Ibex

So I had some trouble playing .avi files in my Ubuntu 8.10 box. I searched the handy dandy Ubuntu Forums and found what I was looking for. I went on to download and install the updates available. And then ran the following commands in the terminal.

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/intrepid.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

wget -q http://packages.medibuntu.org/medibuntu-key.gpg -O- | sudo apt-key add - && sudo apt-get update

sudo apt-get remove gnash gnash-common libflashsupport mozilla-plugin-gnash swfdec-mozilla && sudo apt-get install alsa-oss faac faad flashplugin-nonfree gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad-multiverse gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly-multiverse gstreamer0.10-pitfdll libavcodec-unstripped-51 libmp3lame0 non-free-codecs sun-java6-fonts sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin unrar

These commands got my files playing again. I’ve only tried a .avi file though. In the future, I might get a chance to play other file types. But I’m pretty sure that I won’t have any issues. In case I do, I can always check the forums for solutions.

 

Conky in Intrepid Ibex

I have the exact same Conky setup as in my Hardy installation. I had an issue with the borders having shadows and couldn’t figure out what was wrong in my configuration. Turns out, my Conky code is fine. A fellow ubuntuforums.org user pointed out that the cause is CompizFusion. I didn’t have CompizConfig installed at the time. The weird thing was that my Conky worked flawlessly in my upgraded Intrepid Ibex but the shadow/border shows up when I used the fresh install.

I installed CompizConfig and turned off Window Decoration as recommended. That did not solve the issue though. I was playing around with the settings and discovered where the fault lied. It was the opacity of the shadow/borders. I dragged it to the minimum that the bar would let me, saved the settings and ran Conky again. It works great now.