GRUB2 Editor for KDE is a KDE Control Module that lets you configure the GRUB2 bootloader: manage the default boot entry, boot timeout, resolution, menu colors and theme, Linux Kernel arguments, recover GRUB2, remove old entries, create and preview GRUB2 splash images and more.

I triple boot on my netbook and dual boot on my main computer so I wanted a quick way to reboot in a different Linux distribution. Using the instructions in our previous post on how to reboot in Windows from Ubuntu, I've created a script that creates a custom Unity launcher you can use to reboot in some other Linux distribution (or any other OS) you have installed via quicklists.

There are many ways Grub can get broken: installing Windows, messing around with Grub configuration files or just a faulty update. Luckily, there are also quite a few ways to restore Grub. Such a tool is Rescatux, an really easy to use Live CD that fixes the Grub in seconds.

If you want to try out a new Linux distro, be it the latest Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal daily ISO or any other (I've only tested it with Ubuntu though!) and don't want to burn a CD each time you want to try a new daily build (and you don't have an USB memory stick around), you can use a cool GRUB 2 feature that lets you boot a live CD ISO directly from your hard disk. You can also use this method to boot varous utilities such as Super Grub Disk, SystemRescueCD, Parted Magic and so on.

Grub Customizer - a new graphical GRUB 2 and BURG settings manager -, 2.0 has been released today with a lot of enhancements: you can now select the default boot entry, change the menu visibility and timeout, set kernel parameters, disable recovery entries and change screen resolution (GFX_MODE) - all by using Grub Customizer.

Burg Manager 1.0 has been released today, the major highlights of this release being an option to add an ISO to the BURG menu (and thus boot an ISO - however this doesn't seem to work right now -> see the comments), an option to restore BURG into MBR after a Kernel upgrade and an option to remove old kernels and its menu entries.

(Burg menu)

Burg (Brand New Universal Bootloader) is a boot loader based on Grub which supports themes so you can choose the OS you want to boot based on its icon in the menu list (it supports a lot of Linux distributions, Windows, Mac OSX).

Burg Manager is an application to easily install Burg (along with the default Burg themes and a Burg emulator) and change most of the Burg settings such as the timeout, download and install new themes, remove Burg and restore Grub 2, set the default operating system and many advanced options. Burg works in both Ubuntu and Kubuntu (I've tested it in both) and most probably other *ubuntu flavors too.