Help with Debian and Grub!

grogthegreat

Baseband Member
Messages
22
Hi,
I am obviously new to linux and have a fresh install of debian 3.1 "Sarge" on another partion and windows XP on the first partition. When I boot the computer, Grub comes on for three seconds allowing me to select windows XP. If I don't touch anything, it goes straight to debian. I need to change this so that it defaults windows instead. At the command line, I try to go into "/boot/grub/menu.lst" but instead of displaying "default 0" allong with the timeout etc, it tells me "permission denided." It tells me this even when I am signed in as root. I thought the problem was that I didn't have "ee" installed so I tried the apt-get install ee command but it told me that it couldn't find ee despite having cd#7 in the drive and already scanned. I get the same "permission denied" if I try to access "/etc/apt/sources.list" also. Can any of you help me out? Thanks in advance,

Grog
 
What command exactly are you typing to "access" the files. Are you trying to open them to edit them, or just go to the directory, or just display them?


To edit the files you might try, if you have nano installed, using the command line and typing

su

nano /boot/grub/menu.lst

if you have nano... or you could use joe, or vim... whatever editor you prefer. I just happen to love nano. Anyway, as root, that should let you edit whatever the heck you want.

Let us know exactly what the problem is if it still doesn't work.
 
Thanks for the help. Nano worked! I was trying to open them without using anything. I would just type "/boot/grub/menu.lst" without anything eles. I tried to change it using "vi" which didn't turn out well and I spent 10 minutes trying to find out how to quit! Right now I am going to try to get windows X up and running and will post again here if something goes wrong! Thanks again!

Grog
 
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