i always get the option of installing grub when I do installs.... I've rarely done an install from a live disk

it has to be said but perhaps there is a problem with the disk? Have you run the disk check utility from the install options? Perhaps burning another disk and trying that will help...

That was a failure to complete typing "sda", which should have read "sda3". I was indeed installing into the 79GB sda3 as you probably surmised by context. Apology for the confusion.

Since it was not mentioned, I will assume that /boot and grub are the same. Only if this is not the case, please inform.

Robert, I do not understand this:I am already confused about /boot and grub, so what does "get the option" mean? And are you installing from a USB drive if not a live disk or do you just download an install disk version instead of a live disk version, or what?

I downloaded my live CD from https://ubuntu-mate.org/trusty/ One thing to keep in mind is that 2 weeks ago last night I successfully installed 14.04 into sda5 having used sda3 as /boot and sda4 as /swap using this DVD. Don't remember individual partition sizes for certain, but pretty sure that there was 2GB /boot and 2GB /swap. That install worked all day the next day. I will again mention in case relevant, that the last thing that I did before I went to bed was to set it to hibernate after two hours. The next morning it would not boot and the 1T HDD that I installed /home into has not been visible since. Probably failed, but highly co-incidental. I only learned that the swap should have been larger than my RAM which is 8GB after it failed.

I will try to install something else and see what happens

If you do a manual install (In Ubuntu/Mint it is called Something Else) you will see an option at the bottom of the window which shows your drives/partitions. The option is "Device for bootloader installation". Clicking the drop down arrow gives you options. The options are all the drives attached as well as all the partitions so you need to decide whether you want it on the MBR of a specific drive or on a particular partition. That is if you are using an MBR system. In your case, you have an already functioning system (12.04) so you might select to install the bootloader to the / (root filesystem) partition, sda4. If you do that, when you reboot you would reboot to the already existing 12.04 boot menu, select 12.04 from the option, boot to the Desktop, open a terminal and run sudo update-grub. The output should show the new install on sda4.

Grub is not the same as boot. Grub is a bootloader which will boot or start an operating system. The term 'boot' used as verb simply means to start. There are also boot directories in Linux which contain various boot files, the kernel and the bootloader files including Grub in the grub sub-directory of /boot.

There is really no necessity to have a separate boot partition for an average home computer user although there are valid reasons to have one in certain circumstances. I would suggest you read the tutorial below and read the section Bootloader for a basic understanding of booting and then scroll further down to Installation Guide Step by Step. You might make notes if you have questions to post here.

If you take a look at the images in the Installation Guide, you will see the option "Device for bootloader installation".

I am speechless. As many times as I have installed over the last 2 1/2 weeks, I had never noticed that drop-down. That resolves my confusion on grub and /boot.

I have a 14.04 install on sda3 alongside my older 12.04 on sda2, clearly visible in the grubloader drop-down, but it just does not show up in the grub menu when the computer boots into grub.

I am unclear as to how to install the grubloader into sda4 (there is no sda4 now). Do I reinstall 14.04 into a smaller sda3 partition, say 39GB as I had been doing then make a new partiton (sda4) and if so what size? What I don't see is exactly how to get the grubloader into sda4? Thanks

P.S. Did you intend to include a link to the tutorial you mentioned?

That's good to know. At least your SSD now has unnecessary partitions removed.

The link you've provided says So I presume when you boot from your Mate live-cd, the Mate live-OS offers you the option to install a 'permanent' Mate OS on your SSD.
When you select this option, it is possible that the Mate-installer does not have access to a proper Ubuntu Mate .iso file for a permanent install.

To permanently install Ubuntu Mate, try this page of the same site you used: https://ubuntu-mate.org/wily/

This Youtube tutorial will take you through the install process using the same website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaBski1XKWg.

This should sort out your installation problem.
Your problem seems to be you're installing from a live-cd not from a full installation cd.

If you're using an SSD (and not a HDD), then you need to remember that the more changes you make on the SSD (read-write cycles), then the more you wear it away.
Don't have a swap partition on your SSD. Although your linux distro will be less than 5GB in size, it's best to have the partition relatively large so the 'wear levelling' of the SSD works better. This is not the case with a HDD.
After some time using your new distro, you can then see how to configure your OS to get the most out of your SSD (e.g. having a swap partition on your 1TB HDD to enable suspend and hibernate, using TRIM etc).

With reference to wear rates on SSDs, see post #4 from TobiSGD (LQ Moderator):

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ed-4175474015/


Write endurance:

https://ef.gy/statistics:ssd-write-endurance

I thought you were trying to use sda4 to install to from your earlier posts. Obviously, if there is no sda4 you can't. If you install a new instance of Ubuntu to a partition on your computer, you select the partition you are installing to to also install Grub to. Before you do that, you need to make sure that Grub is booting from the 12.04 install on sda2. You can do that by booting into 12.04, opening a terminal and entering the following command:

Reboot the computer to make sure it works.

You can then boot the 14.04 Ubuntu install medium and proceed with the install and select to install Grub to the same partition you are installing Ubuntu on. You then reboot to 12.04 and open a terminal and run: sudo update-grub You should see a new entry in the output for the new install of 14.04.

The other option is during the install of the new system, to install Grub to the default which is? /dev/sda
You can see that when you look at the "Device for bootloader installation. This is what most people do. I guess the only real problem with this method is if the install fails for some reason or you have a power outage during the install you're machine is unbootable until repaired.

I don't know what 'grubloader drop-down' you are referring to? From your boot repair output earlier, it looked like a failed install on sda3. So what exactly does show up in the Grub menu when you boot? From an earlier post, it seemed as if you had a 14.04 in the menu but I guess you had multiple installs of it.

Yes, here it is. This is a very detailed tutorial with lots of information on Linux, bootloaders and partitioning with a number of links to more detailed information.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/u...all-guide.html

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/u...all-guide.html

Have just popped in for a few minutes to update. Will follow up on each of the replies, thank you) in order, probably only HB now, and the others later.

HB, the top of the page on the link provided has exactly the same language. The only difference I can see is that the linked page takes me to 15.10 instead of 14.04 (which is LTS and my preferred.)

I had previously downloaded and installed Ubuntu 14.04 with precisely the same the results as with the Ubuntu Mate 14.04.

I now have U Mate (Live CD) "Something Else" up now and it shows:

sda1 biosgrub 1GB
sda2 EXT4 40GB Ubuntu 12.04.5 LTS
sda3 EXT4 79GB Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS

so the Ubuntu 14.04 I referred to in para 2 is now installed, it is just the grub screen that is not showing it, so is it a bootloader problem?

I booted into 12.04 and ran sudo grub-install /dev/sda as yancek suggested. It reported:
Rebooted and got the same grubscren as before

I feel like we are closing in on a solution as the bits and pieces develop, so with this info and whatever insights it may give those of you who have leaned over backward to assist with this crazy problem, maybe we are getting there. Thanks again to all (and if I am not responding directly to each of the posts, I am definitely reading and making notes of all the great suggestions.)

This is very useful to know. Since SSDs are fairly new, it's always unclear how long they'll last.
I'm going to create a rig with m.2, SSD, and a HDD. All the linux distros will be on SSDs with the legacy HDD for extra storage and swap.
Apparently, there are different ideas about how best to configure the OS for optimised use of the SSD. Over the next year, I expect there will be more agreement or just no concerns about how to use an SSD.

Yes, you're right. The page has actually been changed. The permanent install is no longer available, and as you say, only a live version is offered.
If you look at the link to the Youtube video I gave earlier, you will see that the original 'permanent' distro is being offered.
However, it seems the page has now been changed and it is offering a different option.

Please consider this link for Ubuntu Mate 15.04 http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-mat...15.04/release/.
For best practice, you should do a SHA256SUM check to ensure the download of the .iso file is ok.

At the present moment LTS is not so important. You just need to install different distros to suit your needs.
After 6 months to a year, you're distro and desktop environment needs may be different.

Do you mean Ubuntu Mate 15.04?
What are 'the same results'? Ubuntu 14.04 runs with the Unity desktop environment and Ubuntu 15.04 runs with Mate.

Yes, it looks like Ubuntu 14.04 has installed and you have a grub issue.

Please go back into 12.04 and run:

We have returned much later than I hoped, so I will just make a couple of comments, then tomorrow try to sort out all the good guidance so I can do the necessaries and ask questions.

BTW, I am making a list of stuff to investigate further/later once I get this installation done and at the top is the wear rate on SSD's so that when I can re-install according to good practice, I can include this. Thanks for the links and comments.

HB, I am stating the following from memory, which is suspect, but the first version of Ubuntu Mate was 14.10. The next version was 14.04. Sounds backward I know, but am pretty sure that this is the way it developed. Since UM 16.04 is so close, I probably should go ahead and use 15.04, and if the install below does not succeed, will download, checksum and use.

Once I get 14.04 installed, the only reason I will NEED to upgrade is to get the next LTS version. My work habits haven't changed enough over the years to require any new versions and I don't imagine anything is likely to be different in the future. Give me my Gnome 2 and I'm good.

So I just want to get Ubuntu Mate 14.04 installed, ultimately in a good boot,swap,system structure so that if for any reason, I cannot upgrade to 16.04, I can use it 'til it craters.

So I am reinstalling UM 14.04 as I type this, and will run the code in 12.04 when it finishes.

Edit: Same result as before (will elaborate on this tomorrow) and now unsure why I thought anything might be different. Will d/l UM 15.10 in the morning.

Here is the report:

robert@robert-MS-7641:~$ sudo grub-install /dev/sda
[sudo] password for robert:
Installation finished. No error reported.
robert@robert-MS-7641:~$ sudo update-grub
Generating grub.cfg ...
Warning: Setting GRUB_TIMEOUT to a non-zero value when GRUB_HIDDEN_TIMEOUT is set is no longer supported.
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.8.0-44-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.8.0-44-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.8.0-36-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.8.0-36-generic
Found linux image: /boot/vmlinuz-3.8.0-29-generic
Found initrd image: /boot/initrd.img-3.8.0-29-generic
Found memtest86+ image: /boot/memtest86+.bin
Found Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS (14.04) on /dev/sda3
done

2nd Edit: The first line in the page link to UM 15.04 is
So isn't this a Live CD, just as are the 14.04 and the 15.10 we discussed above?

The above quote is from your post #11 and I'm not sure what you mean by that? Generally, when you install a Linux system, it will put itself at the top of the menu. The second sentence in your quote above says you need to scroll down the menu on boot to click the 12.04 entry and it boots. Is the first part in reference to the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file on 12.04? After installing Grub to the MBR from 12.04, if you go to the /boot/grub/grub.cfg file on its partition, you should see an entry for 14.04 since it showed in the update-grub output you posted. If it is and when you boot it, it fails then something is likely wrong with that install.

Since you have made so many changes, a new boot repair script would be in order. You might also read the info on some of the links posted above to get a better understanding.

Doubtless I am using confusing terminology. When I speak of grub menu, I mean the selections that one sees when the computer boots.

I do think progress is being made. When I run the Live CD, it shows an installation of 14.04 in sda3, but when I start the computer, I see a list of options, with "Ubuntu" at the top. If I click on it, the computer hangs after putting up messages (see #11)

If I drop down to Ubuntu 12.04 (next to bottom selection), 12.04 boots normally.

14.04 just doesn't show up in this list.

Since it seems to be installed in sda3, I conclude that there is a boot or grub problem. Is there a boot repair or grub repair that might best address the above issue?

Try https://sourceforge.net/projects/boot-repair-cd/

Well, this is looking messy as your boot file now has 3 boot images.

What does your grub file look like?
Also, what is the output of:
There should be no entries here about any swap partitions (since you haven't fully set one up - and in any case, it's been deleted).


Yes, the web page has been changed. There is an alternative link for a permanent Ubuntu 15.04 .iso file on my previous post.