how to remove GRUB

[minties]

Hi folks.

I have Mint 13 installed. Since Mint is the only OS installed, the computer boots straight into Mint, and GRUB is not installed.

Yesterday I connected an external usb hard drive with Windows 7 installed to access some files. I then saw some updates were available and downloaded and installed them via Update Manager. Some GRUB packages were updated, and during the update, I was presented with the option to modify the GRUB files on my machine, which I accidentally chose YES to. GRUB was then installed and detected the Windows 7 on the external hdd.

Now GRUB loads when the computer starts, and Mint and Windows 7 are options to load. How can I completely remove GRUB and just boot straight into Mint(like before)? I don't mean to just choose MINT as the default OS in GRUB to boot into - I mean completely uninstall GRUB altogether.

Thanks in advance.

[bimsebasse]

You can't remove grub and grub is installed even if you just have one OS. What you can do is edit grub so you skip the grub startup menu, as always I warmly recommend Grub Customizer for any grub editing - see 3c in this guide (same procedure in Mint 13)

[minties]

Thanks for the reply.

I noticed from the link:

"3c. Manage grub settings with Grub Customizer
The Ubuntu default "Startup Manager" is something bordering on useless and wisely has been dropped in Mint 12, but that leaves Mint without a grub editing GUI. The best available grub manager application I know of is Grub Customizer:"

After Googling, I installed the Startup Manager, and set Mint as the default OS, with 0 wait time to load. Now the computer boots straight into Mint, and the GRUB menu doesn't even appear. So Startup Manager is not entirely useless.

[srs5694]

Bimsebasse is mostly correct.

A default installation of Mint includes GRUB 2, whether or not you're using another OS; it's just that this default installation of GRUB hides the GRUB menu at boot time (at least on a Mint-only installation), so that you don't realize it's installed. When you updated GRUB with the Windows 7 disk plugged in, the installation scripts detected Windows and added it to the menu. They may also have made the menu visible by default, and it's conceivable they overwrote the Windows boot loader on the external disk. The GRUB upgrade should not have deleted Windows itself, or even written to its partition.

Where bimsebasse isn't quite correct is that it is possible to boot Linux (including Mint) without GRUB. To do so, you must install another boot loader. On BIOS-based computers, the usual choices for this are LILO, GRUB Legacy, GRUB 2, and SYSLINUX. GRUB 2 is currently the most popular of these by far, but my impression is that LILO (the oldest of the four) is making a modest resurgence, and some people are moving to SYSLINUX. On EFI-based computers, boot loader choices include ELILO, GRUB Legacy, GRUB 2, and the kernel's EFI stub loader (in kernels 3.3.0 and later). Of these, IMO GRUB 2 is the worst choice and the EFI stub loader is the most reliable. The EFI stub loader is also the newest, though, and in many configurations, you'll need a flexible boot manager to give you a menu of options. My EFI Boot Loaders for Linux page gives more details on the EFI boot loaders. I don't know of a site offhand that gives a detailed comparison of the BIOS boot loaders.

If you really want to get rid of GRUB, you can do so, but to get more advice, you should post information on your firmware (BIOS vs. EFI) and your specific needs.

[minties]

Thanks for the reply srs5694, much appreciated.

I think it sounds awfully complicated(and unnecessary for my situation) to remove GRUB entirely, so I will leave it be.

[bimsebasse]

Where bimsebasse isn't quite correct is that it is possible to boot Linux (including Mint) without GRUB.

I have said it isn't?

[saegeek]

burg is better than grub :
http://www.unixmen.com/how-to-install-burg-in-ubuntu/