Install Ubuntu 12 on a comp that has Win7 and Mint13

[pepperminty]

Hello,
My computer has Windows 7 and Mint13 coexisting on one hard drive. How can I install Ubuntu Linux on same hard drive? Here are the current partitions:

download/file.php?id=10392

/dev/sda1:Windows 7 (loader):Windows:chain
/dev/sda2:Windows 7 (loader):Windows1:chain
/dev/sda3:Windows Recovery Environment (loader):Windows2:chain
/dev/sda4:Linux Mint 13 Maya (13):LinuxMint:linux

[steveking]

Your best bet is to install the Mint windows installer which will create a 'virtual' partition on your HDD other than that you will have to just burn .iso to disc and manually edit the partition tables to your desired sizes. If you want advice from most Linux users they would say get rid of windows 7, but I use it in a professional Linux environment.

[xenopeek]

Moved here by moderator

Thanks for incuding the screenshot, because /dev/sda4 does not have Linux Mint but is in fact an extended partition in which you have a two logical partitions. Linux Mint is installed on one of those. If you fire up the installer of Ubuntu, it will likely offer to shrink /dev/sda5 and add two new partitions for Ubuntu. It will also replace Linux Mint's GRUB in the MBR with one from Ubuntu (meaning that if you remove Ubuntu, you will have to do some recovery work to be able to boot again).

If you are comfortable with editing partitions, it would probably be better to boot from the Ubuntu installation media, run the installer, but at the step where you have to choose how to install it select the "other" option that will allow you to manually set up partitions and choose where to install GRUB. You would then shrink /dev/sda5, create a new partition in the free space for Ubuntu, but tell the installer to reuse the existing swap partition instead of wasting disk space by creating another. And if you don't want Ubuntu to hijack the MBR with its GRUB, tell it to install GRUB to Ubuntu's new root partition (/dev/sda7).

[pepperminty]

Vincent Vermeulen,
Thank you for your reply. You're right (I was wrong) about /dev/sda4 and /dev/sda5.

Yes, I'm somewhat comfortable editing partitions. I say "somewhat" because I'm a bit apprehensive about making changes that carry much risk!

I plan on using Mint much more often than Ubuntu (for every one boot into Ubuntu, I plan 100 logins into Mint). So, yes, I think it would be good to not have a GRUB menu dependent on keeping the Ubuntu distro.

When I installed Mint 13 a few days ago, I installed MBR on /dev/sda/. I think "sda" without a number appended means "hard drive".

And if you don't want Ubuntu to hijack the MBR with its GRUB, tell it to install GRUB to Ubuntu's new root partition (/dev/sda7).

I understand the instruction, but I'd also like to understand:
Question 1: Why does installing GRUB to Ubuntu's new partition mean that Ubuntu won't hijack MBR?
Question 2: If I do go ahead and install GRUB on Ubuntu's new partition, won't that mean that if I remove the Ubuntu partition, I'm left with no GRUB?
Question 3: Or, to to ask a similar question: How can I update the boot-menu (GRUB) if I later decide to remove the Ubuntu partition?


Question 4: Is a partition of 4 GB spacious enough for Ubuntu? To know how much space a distro is most efficient with, do I simply just need to see how much space it takes on the hard drive and add a few MB of extra free space? The reason I'm asking about this is because I want most of my Linux space to go to Mint, and only the minimum (but not too small to create a slowdown) to Ubuntu.

[xenopeek]

Answer 1: The MBR, the master boot record, is written to the start of a hard disk. /dev/sda means the entire hard disk, but as a target for where to install GRUB it also means the start of the hard disk and thus the MBR. If you instead tell GRUB to install in /dev/sda7, it installs itself into the start of that partition. So it doesn't change the MBR, but only the partition where you are installing Ubuntu

Answer 2: Nope, see above. GRUB from Linux Mint is still installed in the MBR. What that means BTW, is that the GRUB loader program is located in the MBR and it is set to load the GRUB boot menu program and configuration from Linux Mint's partition. That is all located in /boot/grub folder. So when we say "install GRUB to /dev/sda" or "install GRUB to /dev/sda7", all that means is to install the loader program at the start of that hard disk or partition, and to make it load the GRUB boot menu program and configuration from the /boot/grub folder of the partition where we are installing Linux Mint.

Answer 3: If Ubuntu's GRUB is installed to /dev/sda7, you would just to a "sudo update-grub2" on Linux Mint to update its boot menu to not show Ubuntu any more. Should things not work out, you can always use Boot Repair (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Boot- ... _in_Ubuntu) from the installation DVD/USB/CD to change from which partition the GRUB loader installed to the MBR should load its /boot/grub folder.

Answer 4: That sounds too little. I couldn't find any system requirements, but in the installation instructions it has a screenshot stating it needs a minimum of 4.4 GiB. That wouldn't allow you to do much though. I'd say take at least 8 GiB.

[pepperminty]

but tell the installer to reuse the existing swap partition instead of wasting disk space by creating another.

Hi, Vincent, how do i tell the installer to reuse the existing swap partition?

[xenopeek]

When on the "Allocate drive space" step of the installer, choose to do "Something else". Then choose "Specify partitions manually (advanced)". Proceed to shrink the /dev/sda5 partition, create a new /dev/sda7 partition in its place and configure it to Ext4 with mount point "/". Then also highlight the existing swap partition /dev/sda6, click the change button and confirm in the configuration to use it as a swap partition.