How to install without a boot loader? (Solved)

[ElectricRider]

Many distros have a check box you can choose to install a boot loader or not. I'm talking about the screen like Grub that detects all your operating systems and on start of the PC gives you a menu so you can choose which system you want to boot into.

I dont need such a system installed from Mint because I already have one that i prefer. i can simply add Mint and it's install partition to the software and Poof i will see the option to load mint along with my other OS's on startup.

I cannot find an option in the Mint 13 installer not to add the boot loader.

[oobetimer]

You can install Mint´s grub to its partition instead of MBR.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... RDQ#t=473s

[ElectricRider]

You can install Mint´s grub to its partition instead of MBR.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... RDQ#t=473s

O.k... lets say i do this.. that will prevent it from loading at all right? Thats what i want - i don't want to see it at all.

[AlbertP]

If you don't put grub in the MBR (so not on /dev/sda without a number), your current bootloader is preserved.

[ElectricRider]

If you don't put grub in the MBR (so not on /dev/sda without a number), your current bootloader is preserved.

Thanks.. but this video confuses me. Why did he make a an ext3 partition for / ( I assume is root) and another one for home? I also see he made a swap partition. Doesn't the installer know to allocate these partitions?

I guess if you dont do it this way you cannot get to the option that allows you to change the location of the boot loader? ( using the slider option to install along side windows you cant access the option)

As a guy who had to fight to get my first mint system set up months ago and a guy who uses other OS's that dont have to do all this manually creating extra partitions mucking about business, I was REALLY hoping to stay away from all that garbage.

I'm not comfortable using this partition tool to make all those changes. Fdisk from DOS, I can do. Partition Wizard from Mini Tools i can do, for some reason, this thing makes me nervous.

I'm confused ( about the video) .. Please check this to see if I understand it right.

The 104 MB is his system partition so he doesnt/cant touch that. The first thing he does is resize his windows partition? He uses Change to change his windows drive from 34 down to 15 ( assuming he didnt have more than 15 gigs of data on it) This leaves him with 19 gigs. He takes the 19 gigs and used ADD to create a 10 gig ext3 for root ( with format checked) From the leftover 9 gigs he creates a 1 gig for swap (without format). From the 8 gigs left he creates another ext3 for Home ( with format checked). Then he tells the installer to install his boot loader into where ever he wants .. ( but he actually does not change the default.. he leaves this on his main windows drive) If were to change this.. I assume I would tell it to install in what ever space I allocated for my Root / drive?

Assuming I understand this right. I have 232 gigs on my windows system. I have 64 free. I want to use 15 gigs total for the Mint install. First thing I have to do is use change the size of my windows partition from 232 to 217 ( the installer calls this Creating a new partition I assume out of your windows total) so I use Change button to change my windows partition TO 217 gigs. This should give me the 15 left over I need. I take the 15 and ADD to create say an 8 gig ext3 for root /(with format) from the left over, a 1 gig swap, from the left over a 7 gig ext3 for Home( with format) and last.. change the location of my boot loader to my ext3 root/ drive and click Install.

Is this right?

If it is correct.. why not use ext 4 and what determines what the correct size should be for my Root / and Home partitions?

[AlbertP]

ext4 or ext3 can both be used - ext4 is basically a newer version of the filesystem. And having seperate / and /home partitions is not necessary, though having a swap is good if you ever want to hibernate.

[mintybits]

Just to add...
- back up your existing OS's first.
- use Windows to shrink your Windows partition
- Mint needs two partitions only, one for root "/" and one for swap. Swap size is sort of arbitrary - it's just emergency RAM space like paging files in Windows. Depends on how much RAM you have and what sort of apps you will be using. Use 4GB swap and be done with it.
- Best to make an extended primary partition (if you don't have one already) and put the two Mint partitions in it as logical partitions.
- The partitioning of Mint has no bearing on Grub.
- Install Grub to the root partition to park it out of harms way. Regrettably, unlike some other distros, you cannot opt out of installing Grub. Under no circumstances install grub to a Windows partition.

[ElectricRider]

It didn't work.

I installed the boot loader to the root partition and it does not show up or interfere with the boot loader i prefer to use - But when i boot into the Mint partition, i see Grub on the screen asking me to choose what OS to boot into. If i ignore it, it will load Mint by default. This does get me into Mint without having to choose from grub.. but I didnt want to even see this grub boot loader at all. Cant i get rid of it since it's useless?

can i re-configure it to only count down for one second before it loads Mint?

[mintybits]

I installed the boot loader to the root partition and it does not show up or interfere with the boot loader i prefer to use - But when i boot into the Mint partition, i see Grub on the screen asking me to choose what OS to boot into. If i ignore it, it will load Mint by default. This does get me into Mint without having to choose from grub.. but I didnt want to even see this grub boot loader at all. Cant i get rid of it since it's useless?

can i re-configure it to only count down for one second before it loads Mint?

Yes, it tells you how to do that here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Grub2
Sounds like your prefered loader is not booting Mint directly but chain-loading it via the partition boot code, which is Grub's.

[wayne128]

Many distros have a check box you can choose to install a boot loader or not. I'm talking about the screen like Grub that detects all your operating systems and on start of the PC gives you a menu so you can choose which system you want to boot into.

I dont need such a system installed from Mint because I already have one that i prefer. i can simply add Mint and it's install partition to the software and Poof i will see the option to load mint along with my other OS's on startup.

I cannot find an option in the Mint 13 installer not to add the boot loader.

Well,
That is true. Just too bad.
At one point , I think mint12? it cannot even allow me to install on root partition as root partition does not appear in the selection list.

However, you can do something to trick the installer and do what you desire.
Such as:

1. plug in usb stick, select installer to point boot loader to usb stick, when complete installation, unplug usb stick.

2. just create a small partition, format to any ext format
run installer, this small partition will appear as one of the choice, select boot loader to this small partition,
when installation complete, delete the small partition.

After reboot, get into your boot loader of your choice, add stanza to boot directly to Mint partition.

[srs5694]

ElectricRider, I suggest you post more details -- namely, what boot loader it is you're using to switch between OSes. If it's another GRUB installation, or even LILO or some more exotic Linux-enabled boot loader, you should be able to configure it to launch Mint's kernel(s) directly. If, however, it's something like Windows' boot loader (tweaked with EasyBCD or the like), you'll have to chainload to get to Mint. In this case, you should be able to reconfigure Mint's GRUB to hide the menu and boot directly after a short timeout unless you press a key early in the boot process, but you'll still be going through GRUB.

Note that if you configure another distribution's GRUB to boot Mint's kernels directly, you may need to manually intervene after kernel upgrades to get the new kernel to boot. If you neglect this, you may end up with an unbootable system after a couple of upgrades, if the installer deletes older kernels.

[oobetimer]

Note that if you configure another distribution's GRUB to boot Mint's kernels directly, you may need to manually intervene after kernel upgrades to get the new kernel to boot. If you neglect this, you may end up with an unbootable system after a couple of upgrades, if the installer deletes older kernels.

+1 ..

Legacy grub is the best bootloader for multibooting. If you use configfile, systems boots always correctly.

An example about configfile:
title Some Distro
root (hd0,5)
configfile /boot/grub/menu.lst

[AlbertP]

can i re-configure it to only count down for one second before it loads Mint?

In Startup Manager in the menu you can set both the time out and the default OS.

[ElectricRider]

The nightmare begins like most other nightmares by telling Mint to install grub to your windows system partition overwriting the windows boot loader or MBR/BCD information so windows wont boot. Linux booted from Grub just fine but this was no good.. had to get windows back. Tried using a windows repair disk and the usual options of fix/MBR and rebuild BCD etc nothing worked.

Along comes Bootice the better windows repair disk replacement and telling it to repair the MBR works like a charm. Windows will now Boot. Tried to use EasyBCD on windows 7 to set up a way to get back to my Mint install because now the Grub bootloader is gone. This fine app normally works fine. This time, it balked. Having the guys over a the easyBCD forums hash over the problem and so far, they still have their thinking caps on. EasyBCD doesn't seem to be able to overwrite the existing BCD or instruct the MBR where to look for the proper BCD config file. This may have something to do with exactly How Bootice fixed the MBR but variables are unknown.

I prefer not reinstalling Mint and letting Grub set itself back up as the default boot loader. I would normally have more control over the bootloader from windows and easyBCD assuming it's set up correctly and i didn't fudge anything. The system windows should boot into the windows BCD data and give me a choice of windows and Mint, and if i choose Mint, then I see the grub screen just before it loads the Mint OS. This is how things should work in my perfect world. Alas, my world is not perfect.

So, Now I have some windows MBR/BCD problem with windows MBR not seeing the BCD data I set for it in easyBCD and i want to fix this so i can access both Windows and Mint like i normally should be able to do. I thought i'd ask over here in case anyone has any great insight to add to help solve the problem - from the Mint side of things.

[oobetimer]

In EasyBCD has a NeoGrub which should boot Mint if you give the right information for it.

http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/NeoGrub

[Oscar799]

Threads merged - same Op,same issue

[ElectricRider]

Threads merged - same Op,same issue

Actually It is two completely different issues. They may seem similar to you but look closer, they are not the same issue. I fixed this first issue days ago and now have a separate issue.

I resent your merging of my threads because now it will confuse and mislead readers.

Honestly Oscar, I'm a 44 year old who has used computers for over 20 years and post in many forums. I'm not some kid who posted the same issue in two different threads just to get different answers if that's what you were thinking. You might want to look a little better before you leap.

I did actually manage to fix this issue. Nothing could fix it except an in-place upgrade / repair install of Windows 7. It had nothing to do with Grub or Linux Mint at all. I didn't know that until I understood the problem better. The problem occurred because of the way in which the software Bootice resolved the problem of my MBR not pointing to the correct BCD data. It used an unorthodox method which caused the BCD data to become corrupt. Only a fresh install or in-place upgrade could fix this.

The first issue was how to get rid of the Mint boot loader or make it go away fast.

The second issue was the program EasyBCD would not see my correct BCD configuration file.