Dual Boot Menu Options - Keeps Previous Installation

[Wentworth]

I first installed MInt 10 as a dual boot option with Windows 7. I recently reinstalled Mint 10, using the default settings in the setup. I went with 'install alongside other operating systems' and I've now go two Mint 10 boot options(discounting the recovery mode, or whatever it is). Does this mean that when I install the next Mint version that it will keep the Mint 10 options and any subsequent installations, or do I need to choose another option during the installation?

[casey972oo]

Hi there ! ... ' Wentworth ' ! ...

Yeah ! ... you must make ' partition ' manually ! ...
and don't forget a ' swap ' for LINUX ! ...

casey972oo

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[Wentworth]

Hi and thanks for the reply.

I did think that might be the case.

In terms of the installation process, I remember getting to the 'Partition' phase. As I mentioned before, I just went with the default option suggested as I hadn't a clue what to do. The trouble is that I didn't really understand it, as it had 2 areas, both with a Linux name in it. I would like to learn more about install partitoning so that I don't accumulate lots of Mint boot loaders.

I've looked at my 'network' tab and my 500 Gb HDD is split into 63, 210, 60 and 76 Gb - I'm guessing the remainder is used for my Windows 7. At some point I would like to learn how to repartition, so that I have 2 partitions, a minimal one for Windows and one for Linux Mint; which will help me to tidy it up a bit - any suggestions?

Thanks again.

[casey972oo]

Hi there ! ... ' Wentworth ' ! ...

things went worth again ? ...
is just too much to explain to you how to do a ' partition ' ! ...

but go to ' SalineOS ' ...
they have a ' manual ' with a good instruction for doing this ! ...

http://salineos.com

look in the ' home-page ' for ' user manual ' ... or ' man-pages ' ! ...
you'll find a link there ! ...

good luck ! ...

casey972oo

[proxima_centauri]

but go to ' SalineOS ' ...
they have a ' manual ' with a good instruction for doing this ! ...

Wentworth can receive help from the community he is a part of and posting in.

Does this mean that when I install the next Mint version that it will keep the Mint 10 options and any subsequent installations, or do I need to choose another option during the installation?

So if I understand correctly, you have one partition for Linux Mint 10, Linux Mint 9 and Windows, and probably a SWAP partition.
If you install Linux Mint 11, and choose the "install alongside" option again, you may get yet another partition - but I don't think you want to continually install each version alongside each other. If you're satisfied with Linux Mint 10, you can boot the LiveCD and use Partition Editor to remove the Linux Mint 9 partition and re-add the space to Linux Mint 10.

If you wanted to get rid of Linux Mint 9 and 10 and do a fresh install of Linux Mint 11. You could use the Linux Mint 11 LiveCD and similarly use Partition Editor to remove both partitions, and then create a single ext4 partition for Linux Mint 11. When you go through the installation, you have to choose the manual installation option - and then specify to use the newly created partition as "/".

This is a bit of information so please post back if you need to clarify or need additional information.

[casey972oo]

Yeah ! ... thank you ! ... ' proxima_centauri ' ! ...

I was just too lazy to explain this to him ! ...

casey972oo

.

[lmintnewb]

Download and burn a copy of Parted Magic. Sweet opensource utility ... one of the tools it includes is gparted live. Would delete one of those Mint installs if it were me. When you chose to reinstall Mint 10 ... Installer left the one you already had on whichever partition it was on and installed another Mint 10 on your hdd too.

Really no benefit of having two Mint 10 operating systems installed. Well guess if ya mess with and bork one, you could just boot into the other one as a back-up, lol. But still kinda silly ... or wasteful imo.

Burn parted magic iso. Put in disc drive ... fire up computer. Once it's done loading into ram, it will eject the disk it's on. Select the icon for gparted on the desktop. Choose the partition you want to get rid of by clicking on it and the rest is pretty self explanatory.

Using gparted period imo ... Is pretty self explanatory overall. The second Mint install should be gone the next time you boot into Mint 10. If not open terminal and type the command .... sudo update-grub

And there ya go, one Mint install, one Mint entry in the grub menu like it's supposed to have.

[proxima_centauri]

Download and burn a copy of Parted Magic. Sweet opensource utility ... one of the tools it includes is gparted live. Would delete one of those Mint installs if it were me. When you chose to reinstall Mint 10 ... Installer left the one you already had on whichever partition it was on and installed another Mint 10 on your hdd too.

Not bad advice, but if the OP already has LiveCD of Linux Mint, gparted is included - so it doesn't make sense to download and burn another disc that performs the same function.

[Wentworth]

At the moment I have two Mint 10 and a Windows 7 boot option. I will install gparted and try to sort it out. I'm planning to upgrade to Katya but not immediately. Re-partitioning sounds daunting but I want to give it a go.

I'm hoping to be able to learn how to install Katya whilst getting rid of Julia. I'd like to get some help with explanations on how to do deal with allocating space on the install. I tried and failed to get a screen shot of the stage I'm talking about, but in the Mint Guide it's on pages 13 and 14 of 50 entitled 'Allocate Drive Space'. I went for the 'install alongside other operating systems'. I thought about using the 'something else' option, but the Guide advises that it's for more advanced users. I'm guessing that I need to use this one in future.

[proxima_centauri]

I thought about using the 'something else' option, but the Guide advises that it's for more advanced users. I'm guessing that I need to use this one in future.

Yes, that's correct. If you find out the partition that Julia is installed to, i.e., /dev/sda3 for example; then in the installation instead of choosing "Install alongisde..." you choose the manual installation option. From there you can choose to use /dev/sda3 as your new "/" partition for Katya.

[lmintnewb]

True about the dup thing, parted magic has other tools too though. Definitely no shortage of options in Mint/linux. Always many ways to go about a given thing it seems. Just found parted magic to be easier to deal with myself. Whatever gets the job done, is what matters though .. eh.