Can I uninstall another linux distro directly over Mint on dual boot system?
 

Hi there - I think the title says it all really - I've installed Mint onto a Acer aspire 5315 laptop. Its a dual boot system using Vista Basic. Grub works perfectly and to be honest Mint is great. really enjoying playing and learning. My problem is that the laptop overheats when using Mint - the cpu fan doesn't cut in and the laptop shuts down to protect the system. According to a swift google this seems to occur with mint (possibly particularly with Acer's) and maybe with other distro's too. However I'd like to keep trying to see if i can find one that works.

So my rather obvious newbie question is can I just get another distro dvd and install this onto the partition containing mint thus deleting the previous install? If I did this would Grub show the new distro ok or would it keep searching for Mint. I have a back up so if all else fails I can reinstall everything but that will have to wait till I get home

thanks

Your title says uninstall. So no, it doesn't say it all.
Any linux distro will find your existing install and use that space, unless you tell it otherwise. You might even get to keep your files in /home unless the new one uses a different filesystem to Mint.
There should be no problem with grub, unless you choose a distro that uses a different version, and even then it should be ok.

Yes it possible to install a other distro on the same partition where you have installed MINT now
Most installer give you the option where to install .
This option is called customize or manual or expert option.
Use this option to install you're new distro without deleting anythink before installing .
The installer of you're new distro will format the MINT partition.

Cue lots of swearing........

I searched the forum - checked my post - then cocked up the title!!!!!

My guess is that it is possible (and possible is not the same as easy, necessarily) to fix this, to a point.

Most CPUs from the last quite a few years have different power states; the states that have lower power draw, also have low performance, but you can arrange to only use the higher power states when you really need them, and/or when the temperature is under control.

For KDE 4 there are various perf profiles System Settings > Advanced > Power management, but you are probably using Gnome? (which should still be possible, I just don't know how exactly that you'd do it), although you could argue that this is just a work-around.

The fan itself is probably something like an ACPI function or, maybe, something to do with BIOS settings. The trouble is, unless you find someone who knows about this, maybe using another distro is the easier way forward.