Removing Ubuntu after installing LinuxMint

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welshmike

Removing Ubuntu after installing LinuxMint

Post by welshmike »

I have been running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on my Asus Eee PC 1001P Netbook that needed some "fiddling" to get sound and wifi working. With 10.04 at end of life I tried Ubuntu 12.04 Unity LTS on it triple boot. (the Netbook retains its original Windows XP). Unity does not perform well on the wimpy Atom processor. So I installed LinuxMint 13 Maya LTS instead of the Unity.
I'm happy to report that LinuxMint worked "out of the box" with sound and wifi working by default. Also performance is very good.
I now want to remove Ubuntu 10.04 but am concerned that by simply deleting its partition I will screw things up and my Netbook will not boot properly.
How may I remove Ubuntu 10.04 please so that I'm left with a successful boot?
(i'd also like to remove XP too).
Here's a screenshut of the partition layout: [rimg]http://www.amipp.org.uk/Screenshot.png[/rimg]
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Topic automatically closed 6 months after creation. New replies are no longer allowed.
741cc

Re: Removing Ubuntu after installing LinuxMint

Post by 741cc »

First back up any important files.
If your Mint/sda7 OS is the default one, simply delete the (unmounted) Ubuntu/sda5 partition using gparted. Simple job to extend /home/sda8 into the free space created if thats your plan.

Run sudo update-grub in a termimal and Ubuntu will be gone from the menu on next boot-up.
welshmike

Re: Removing Ubuntu after installing LinuxMint

Post by welshmike »

741cc thank you.

Wow! so easy.

All my important files are safe in a separate partition /home .

(That's an interesting Username you have. Motor cycle engine capacity? Triumph Trident or BSA Rocket 3 maybe.
In my youth I rode a red BSA Super Rocket 650 twin.)
welshmike

Re: Removing Ubuntu after installing LinuxMint

Post by welshmike »

To delete the Ubuntu partition (5) GParted required me to unmount logical partitions greater than 5. (the Ubuntu 10.04 one). This wasn't possible while running LinuxMint nor even when running LinuxMint booted live from a USB flash drive.
RichardH

Re: Removing Ubuntu after installing LinuxMint

Post by RichardH »

That means you'll have to boot a LiveCD in order to remove those logical partitions.

If you really want to get rid of Windows XP, I'd suggest you back up
all your data that you don't want to lose and reformat the whole thing.

You can have 3 primary partitions and 1 extended partition
which can contain up to 15 logical partitions.
Last edited by RichardH on Fri Oct 11, 2013 8:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
741cc

Re: Removing Ubuntu after installing LinuxMint

Post by 741cc »

Right-click the swap partition, sda6, and select 'swapoff'.
gold_finger

Re: Removing Ubuntu after installing LinuxMint

Post by gold_finger »

You should be able to do that from a live USB or DVD. I think (but not 100% sure) that the extended partition needs to be unmounted before making changes to partitions contained within it. So, in gparted, under "Partition" menu, you need to "Unmount" each partition within the extended partition (4) separately before you can unmount the extended partition. So click on each partition (9, 5, 8 and 7) and unmount them one by one; then click extended partition 4 and unmount. Once the extended partition is unmounted, you can make changes to the partitions within it.

Edit: As 741cc said -- for sda6 choose "swapoff". I missed that partition in explanation above.

Now you should be able to delete Ubuntu partition, expand home, etc. I could be wrong, but I don't think you have to even bother with changing grub at this point. Computer should boot up and will still show Ubuntu as an option even though it's not there anymore -- just pick Mint as you normally would. Then after back in Mint, run following command in a terminal:

Code: Select all

sudo update-grub
Next time you boot, Ubuntu will be gone from menu. (If I'm wrong about that, somebody else chime in here.)
welshmike

Re: Removing Ubuntu after installing LinuxMint

Post by welshmike »

741cc wrote:Right-click the swap partition, sda6, and select 'swapoff'.
Before reading your suggestion above I had booted a live Ubuntu 10.04 from a USB flash drive, selected swapof sfor sda6 and deleted empty partition /dev/sda9.
I then managed to delete /dev/sda5 the Ubuntu 10.04 partition.
However sudo update-grub in the terminal returned /usr/sbin/grub-probe: error cannot find device for / (is/dev mounted?)
I then clicked Places and clicked all the partition places (to mount them). Still no joy.
I rebooted the netbook to boot from the hard drive and this appeared:
error: no such partition
grub rescue>

Oh well re-install of LinuxMint may deliver success.
741cc

Re: Removing Ubuntu after installing LinuxMint

Post by 741cc »

Don't know what went wrong there, but Its easy to re-install grub from a live cd. You need to mount the partition containing the OS on /mnt, then do:
grub-install --root-partition=/mnt/ /dev/sd#
(where # is the disk, not the partition)
Thats frm memory, try google for 'grub-install', I'll look it up properly later when I finish work.
welshmike

Re: Removing Ubuntu after installing LinuxMint

Post by welshmike »

Thanks for the info about Grub which may be useful in future..
It wasn't a problem to re-install LinuxMint though because I use my Netbook only when I fly away on holidays a couple of times a year..
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