In difference to grub(-legacy), there is no option in grub2 to set a timeout for choosing whether to use the console or the serial line for the bootmenu. In the grub2 manual, section 13.2.2 it is documented that you can do: terminal_input [--append|--remove] [terminal1] [terminal2] I needed some time to realize that that implies you can set terminal_input serial console terminal_output serial console in grub.cfg, so that the menu goes to serial line and console concurrently. After that, it was just a guess, that GRUB_TERMINAL="serial console" in /etc/default/grub would do it. So my request is to make a clear mention to this in the grub manual section 13.2.2 and maybe include an example in /etc/default/grub like: #GRUB_TERMINAL="console serial" # for concurrent output of the bootmenu to console and serial line