Startup slow after installing linux and a dual boot

In your /boot/grub/grub.conf file there is an entry of default. You can open grub.conf in any text editor of your choice, provided that you have the root privileges.

There look for the line default=0 it can have any other number instead of 0, like 1 or 2, depending on your configuration. I think it your case it would be 1.

Anyway, at lower portion of file you will see entries starting with the word title. Like title Fedora (2.6.27.41-170.2.117.fc10.i686) or title Windowx XP.

If you want to make the first entry default then you will write default=0. If you want to make the second entry default, you will write default=1 and so on and so forth.

So see at which place title Windows 7 is. Subtract one from it and write that number in front of default=.

Then you will see another entry too in that file, timeout=25. Change the number to something of your liking like 5 or 7 timeout=5

Now grub will wait for 5 seconds for you to press any key. If you press the key it will display OS choice menu. Else it will boot the default entry.

To sum it up, have a look at following example.

default=0
timeout=5
splashimage=(hd0,0)/boot/grub/splash.xpm.gz
hiddenmenu
title Fedora (2.6.27.41-170.2.117.fc10.i686)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27.41-170.2.117.fc10.i686 ro root=UUID=2095a566-7d46-4ea1-8c71-9ec409f29770 rhgb quiet
        initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.27.41-170.2.117.fc10.i686.img
title Fedora (2.6.27.38-170.2.113.fc10.i686)
        root (hd0,0)
        kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.27.38-170.2.113.fc10.i686 ro root=UUID=2095a566-7d46-4ea1-8c71-9ec409f29770 rhgb quiet
        initrd /boot/initrd-2.6.27.38-170.2.113.fc10.i686.img

Default is equal to zero which means the default entry is the title 1 which is Fedora (2.6.27.41-170.2.117.fc10.i686). Timeout is 5 so it waits for 5 second for a key press, otherwise it boots the default entry.

I think it is a bad idea to set Timeout equal to 0 or 1.

Hope it was helpful.