How To Change The GRUB Boot Order Or Default Boot Entry In Ubuntu, Linux Mint, Debian, Or Fedora With Grub Customizer

Those dual booting, either multiple Linux distributions, or Linux and Windows, might prefer changing the default GRUB boot order, or the default boot entry, so the operating system that's most used is first / selected by default.

GRUB 2 boot menu

Grub Customizer, a graphical (Gtk) interface to configure some GRUB 2 settings, can be used to change the default GRUB boot menu order without having to manually edit configuration files, like /etc/default/grub.

To change the GRUB boot menu order using Grub Customizer, go to the List configuration tab, select a boot menu entry and use the up and down arrows to change its position:

Grub Customizer grub menu order

Instead of changing the GRUB boot menu order, you can also change the default OS (default selected boot entry). This way, even if an entry is shown as last in the GRUB boot list, it will be automatically selected when the GRUB boot menu loads. The option to change the default GRUB boot entry is available in Grub Customizer on the General settings tab - choose the default boot entry from the predefined dropdown:

Change GRUB boot menu default selected entry

After making any changes to your GRUB boot menu with Grub Customizer, remember to click the Save button to save the configuration and generate a new grub.cfg.

Grub Customizer ca be installed from the repositories on some Linux distributions, including Debian and Fedora. For Ubuntu, it can be installed from a PPA for Ubuntu versions older than 19.04 (it's in the repositories for Ubuntu 19.04, 19.10, 20.04 and 20.10). Install Grub Customizer:

  • Fedora:
sudo dnf install grub-customizer

  • Debian sid, buster or stretch (backports):
sudo apt install grub-customizer

  • Ubuntu 18.10, 18.04, 16.04 and 14.04 / Linux Mint 19, 18 and 17:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:danielrichter2007/grub-customizer
sudo apt update
sudo apt install grub-customizer

You can also download (scroll down for the latest version) the Grub Customizer DEB package without adding the PPA.

  • Ubuntu 19.04 (Disco Dingo), 19.10 (Eoan Ermine), 20.04 (Focal Fossa) / Linux Mint 20, or Ubuntu 20.10 (Groovy Gorilla):
sudo apt install grub-customizer

On other distributions, look up Grub Customizer in your package manager, or see the instructions for building the application from source.