How to make my laptop to ask me which os I want to boot into everytime I power-on/restart it?

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I have my primary (default) OS as manjaro (installed in my internal 256gb ssd). I have also installed windows 10 and ubuntu on a 1tb external hard disk. Currently, I have to press F9 everytime while I reboot my system if I want to boot into ubuntu or windows. I just want my laptop to ask me everytime about the OS I want to boot into whenever I reboot/power-on it.

I’ve search the web for this but they refer to software like easyBCD which is not working for me as I installed windows after installing manjaro in my system. So, i was wondering if there is a solution to this problem?
thanks in advance :slight_smile:

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You should normally be able to tell the UEFI to present you with a boot menu at every power-on, but only you can do that — I am not at your computer. :wink:

An alternative is to edit the /etc/default/grub in Manjaro and make sure that it has the following entries… :arrow_down:

GRUB_TIMEOUT_STYLE=menu

GRUB_DISABLE_OS_PROBER=false

Then, save the file and run… :arrow_down:

sudo update-grub

… in a terminal window. Make sure that your external drive is plugged in when you do this.

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thank you for your reply. I am a beginner and I don’t even know what role UEFI plays in the booting process :smile:. But, I think I can give the alternative answer a go. I am currently updating after a long time and i think it;s gonna take a while. I’ll give you an update once I try this. :+1:

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The menu you get by pressing F9 is the UEFI boot menu. You can tell the UEFI to always display this menu, without you needing to press a key.

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Oh I see, but how can i tell UEFI to bring that up for me? can you refer me to an appropriate place where I can find this.

6

Enter the UEFI settings and look at the boot options. I cannot tell you how or where because of how many different UEFI implementations there are.

Usually you enter the settings by pressing F10 or Del or something during cold boot. The documentation of the motherboard or laptop should tell you that, and there should even be a message on the screen during boot.

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thank you kind sir! As soon as my update finishes, I’ll try to locate the UEFI settings

8

Check out the rEFInd boot manager. It’s very easy to install, and gives you a nice GUI screen with different icons to choose from every time you boot. There are even different themes available, so you can customize the way it looks if you want. Here’s an example of a screenshot:

image

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