"Dummy" entry in grub menu

English Install/Boot/Login
1

I recently had some problems due to accidental use of incorrect repositories. To fix the system, I corrected the list of repositories, and then ran

zypper --releasever=15.4 dup

This cured my problems, as far as I can see, but has caused the 1st entry in the grub boot menu to become “Dummy”, instead of “openSUSE 15.4”. Infocenter also shows “Dummy” to the right of the iguana icon. Apart from this, everything seems to work.

Does this mean that there is some subtle fault I have not discovered, or is it harmless? If harmless, how do I restore the normal boot menu entry?

2

There is a gui app called grub-customizer for editing grub and grub menus. It worked for me on 15.3. It is in https://software.opensuse.org/package/grub-customizer

There is a leap 15.3 version but as of yet no 15.4 version. Perhaps one will come soon.

It can also be downloaded from arch linux repo as described in: https://linuxconfig.org/how-to-install-grub-customizer-on-linux-all-major-distros

This would probably work but i would wait for 15.4 version from openSUSE to become available as it will have been tested. Tampering with grub can be a nervous generating thing with operability of all OS on your machine potentially in jeopardy.

tom kosvic

3

Show your grub.cfg.

4

It’s a big file to post in its entirety, but it does contain the lines

### BEGIN /etc/grub.d/10_linux ###
menuentry 'Dummy'  --class dummy --class gnu-linux --class gnu --class os $menuentry_id_option 'gnulinux-simple-f558bd18-8930-4b1c-bbe3-4d383e422f3d' {

None of the files in /etc/grub.d contain the string “Dummy”.

5 
cat /boot/grub2/grub.cfg | susepaste

will pastebin it. Then all you need to put here is the resulting URI.

6

OK, the whole file is at SUSE Paste

7

Reading through your posted data, it looks as if that “Dummy” entry should boot Leap 15.4. Somehow it got the wrong name.

Maybe look at “/etc/default/grub”. In particular, look at the GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR line. Perhaps you have “Dummy” there.

8

That line says

GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR=

ie the entry is empty.

Is it sufficient to edit this line, or is more required?

9

Empty GRUB_DISTRIBUTOR defaults to GNU/Linux. Show your /etc/grub.d/10_linux and full /etc/default/grub

10

pasted at SUSE Paste and [FONT=monospace]SUSE Paste respectively.
[/FONT]

11

For further information, here is the whole of /etc/os-release.

NAME=Dummy
ID_LIKE="suse"

Looks like this is the source of the trouble. How can I reconstitute this file?

12

Yes, that would cause the problem.

Try doing a forced re-install of the package “openSUSE-release”.

13

On UEFI installations, that exact line is the default, and equates to “opensuse” as the name of the directory on the ESP partition that contains the file to be loaded by the BIOS to start openSUSE’s Grub-efi bootloader putting up its Grub menu; IOW, /boot/efi/EFI/opensuse. Any alphanumeric string you put after = there will be used instead of opensuse once grub.cfg is next regenerated. Putting something there facilitates having multiple openSUSE installations on the same PC without their Grubs usurping each other; e.g. opensuse153, opensuse154, opensusetw and/or leapbeta.

14

That’s the answer. openSUSE-release was not installed at all - instead the package “dummy-release” was present (WHY??)
which contained the bad version of /etc/os-release. Installing openSUSE-release removes dummy-release and provides a sensible /etc/os-release (actually a symlink to /usr/lib/os-release).

So after this, I re-built grub.cfg, and everything seems ok.

Thanks to everyone for their help.