[gentoo-user] grub2: hidden menu unless shift pressed?

[Grant Edwards]

I'm trying to figure out how to configure grub 2.02 so that no menu is
displayed and it will boot immediately to the default unless shift is
held down during boot -- in which case it displays the menu and waits
indefinitely for a choice to be made.

This is a bare-bones grub2 installation without any of the
auto-magical, config generator scripts.  All I have is grub.cfg and an
editor.

I've found many web pages that say all you have to to is edit
/etc/default/grub and set GRUB_TIMEOUT=0 and GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT=0 and
Bob's your uncle.  Of course that file gets mashed about by dozens of
shell scripts comprising thousands of lines of code to product the
real grub.cfg containing hundreds of lines of code.

[Oh God, how I hate grub2.]

AFAICT, you end up with

set timeout=0
set timeout_style=hidden 

But, that doesn't seem to work. Holding down the shift key during boot
doesn't cause the menu to be displayed, and it always boots directly
to the default no matter what you do.

Any grub2 experts care to lend a clue?

-- 
Grant Edwards               grant.b.edwards        Yow! MERYL STREEP is my
                                  at               obstetrician!
                              gmail.com