but that's no longer the case.

Grub 2, which has taken over from Grub in the last two or three releases (can't
remember exactly when) is more sophisticated, and hence rather more complicated.
There is no longer a /boot/grub/menu.lst. It's replaced by grub.conf*, but that
isn't intended to be edited, and will be overwritten by the system at the next
install. Instead there are a set of executable text files, one for each
installed OS, and a few others too. These can be edited, and then you run
update-grub* to implement the changes.

There are one or two front-ends to simplify the process. Startup-manager* only
really works with the original Grub, but Grub-customizer (in the repository
referenced by ppa:danielrichter2007/grub-customizer ) has handled Grub2 for me
fairly well (colours haven't worked but I've set the default and removed the
clutter).

* I'm working from memory and can't guarantee I remembered the names right

Actually, whether Grub or Grub2, I don't think anyone's completely answered my
question, which is: does it matter in a multi-ubuntu multi-boot set-up, which
installation you use to edit Grub. I think from my own experience that it
probably doesn't, although I don't really understand why.