Partitions and Confusions

[Roger Bird]

So, my Linux Mint 15 Olivia or some program in same began to misbehave. My Internet searches would hang-up. It would not restart. Ugly things like that. Usually it works perfect. So I decided to reinstall it. Now, this is a huge sacrifice, but what could I do?

I had the re-install disk that I had burned from the download. I booted off of that disk and came to screen that listed a bunch of "guided" options and then a "manual" option. Since I was completely lost, I decided to just do the first guided selection. What happened was that it installed a new version of Linux Mint 15 Olivia. It did not replace the old one. So, I lost a lot of space on my disk. The install installed the new Linux Mint 15 Olivia as a selection in the automatic after delay boot position in the boot menu, and it called it the same thing ("Linux Mint 15 Olivia blah blah 64 bit blah") that the old Linux Mint 15 Olivia was called. And it took the old Linux Mint 15 Olivia as a selection and set it at the end menu list and called it just "Linux Mint 15 Olivia". So, in the menu, I thought that the old one was the new one, and the new one was the old one. So I selected the old one and ran it, thinking that it was the new one. It was obviously the old version when I got into it, and it worked perfect without any of the problems that I was having. And the new one was just the same old impersonal Linux Mint 15 Olivia that you-all know and love with absolutely no personalization. So, I prefer the old one if it works perfectly now. So, my questions are:

1. How in the world would installing a new version fix the old version.

2. How can I recover the disk space from the Linux Mint 15 Olivia and the old Linux Mint 13?

3. Also, why am I still getting this when I try to update my software: "Could not download all repository indexes"?

[jimallyn]

!. No idea.

2. I use gparted to move and resize partions. Usually I boot from a recent Puppy Linux CD and use gparted from Puppy. You can delete partitions, move them, resize them, and so on. Be sure you know what you want to do before you start.

3. Mint 15 is no longer supported, so I believe the repositories have been taken down.

[Mute Ant]

''My Internet searches would hang-up. It would not restart. Ugly things like that. Usually it works perfect.''
Looks like intermittent hardware wobblies, Olivia is too mature to be jealous

[austin.texas]

1. How in the world would installing a new version fix the old version.
2. How can I recover the disk space from the Linux Mint 15 Olivia and the old Linux Mint 13?
3. Also, why am I still getting this when I try to update my software: "Could not download all repository indexes"?

1. Not likely
2. Before you delete the operating systems you don't want, you need to make sure that the one you want to keep is in control of the GRUB menu. Boot into the one you want to keep, and run the command sudo grub-install /dev/sda
After that you can safely delete or format the other partitions.
3. As jimallyn said, Mint 15 is no longer supported, so you will have nothing new, even if you could access a repository.
Best to install Mint 17.

[Roger Bird]

Turns out that my problems are the result of some kind of cookie. It was not fixed by installing Mint 15. It is temporarily fixed by removing all cookies an hour old or less.

However, now I have partitions for Windows 7 (needed for my son), Mint 13, Mint 15, and Mint 15. I would like to use all of the Mint partitions for installing Mint 17. And your descriptions on how to handle partitions do not make me feel enthusiastic.

I understand that the command is sudo grub-install /dev/sda But I bet that this is not going to be the only issue that I have to face. I will first download Mint 17 to a disk, which I have done 3 times successfully. Then I will send all of my important documents to my email address. Then I will execute sudo grub-install /dev/sda and use that to remove all of the other Mints. And then boot with my Mint 17 disk and install Mint 17. How does that sound?

My only worry is the sudo grub-install /dev/sda part. If I remember correctly, this command does not clearly display which partition is which. Is there a more user friendly way to remove partitions?

[austin.texas]

The simple way to configure your partitions is to boot the live Mint 17 DVD and use the gparted program.
Open gparted, look at sda, and take a screenshot so that we can see what the current partitions look like, so that you can get specific advice.
You can post the screenshot here using Firefox on the live Mint DVD, after giving the .png a simple name. (The forum won't upload a graphic with a complex name like "Screenshot from 2014-08-18 14:40:15.png" )
Also, open a terminal and post the result of the command:

Code: Select all

sudo os-prober

so that we know which OS is on which partition.
Which linux partition do you want to keep?

[Spearmint2]

Then I will send all of my important documents to my email address.

Please, don't do that. Besides being extremely slow, it puts your personal information at risk. You'd do better to use a flashdrive and put it on that, or burn it to several DVD's. In fact you could just sip it up and save on DVD's since it would use fewer.

Code: Select all

sudo blkid; sudo parted -l;

copy/paste that into terminal and post the results. We can then discover which partition you can use to install Mint 17 into over the most recent Mint 15 install.

[Roger Bird]

I used the KDE Partition Manager 1.0.3. There is no way to know which partition is which. Unless the vertical order is the same as the order of creation (No theological pun intended).

And there does not seem to be a way leave an image of the screenshot that I was able to make.

[Spearmint2]

to leave image or screenshot, when you open reply box, scroll down adn find "upload attachment" and you will be able to post image. Instead of terminal, use Kconsole to run the code I gave you and post the text output.

[Roger Bird]

I am happy to report that I was able to remove my latest partition and install Linux Mint 17 Mate.