Going to Reinstall Linux Mint 17 - too many problems
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If this was my machine I would delete /dev/sda5 and /dev/sda6 in g-parted.
Than highlight the 'free space' that it will generate from the deleted partitions and create the Linux partitions for the fresh install.
Your last image shows sda5 as a Linux filesystem which is where your earlier Mint was. It also shows sda6 as a swap. Not sure why GParted showed it as unknown.
If you add what the terminal says and what gparted says, it looks like sda6 is in Linux swap, not windows.
That means I can delete sda5 and sda6 and then install Linux "alongside" windows.
If this was my machine I would delete /dev/sda5 and /dev/sda6 in g-parted.
Than highlight the 'free space' that it will generate from the deleted partitions and create the Linux partitions for the fresh install.
How do I "highlight" the free space, please?
Oh, I think you mean use gparted to "highlight" instead of just
1. deleting the partitions
2. letting linux "install alongside."
Personally, I would delete the partitions and begin anew with a clean slate.
....
Yes, that is exactly what I want to do as soon as I clear up the issue with Partition 3. Terminal says it does not start at physical boundary. Should this be deleted too?
Your last image shows sda5 as a Linux filesystem which is where your earlier Mint was. It also shows sda6 as a swap. Not sure why GParted showed it as unknown.
I encrypted the home directory when I installed LM the first time. Could that have something to do with it?
I would manually create the partitions for your fresh install.
Click on the freespace and create your first partition for your ext4 / file system than create your swap partition 1 to 2 GB.
-::-This way you don't run the risk of accidentally deleting your Windows partitions and thus having to reinstall Windows again and than install Linux.-::-
one of the tutorials I read said make linux swap 2x size of ram. I will have enough free space in sda5 and sda6 to do that.
So by ext 4 you mean the unnamed partition on the far right of the screenshot. It gets confusing switching from windows to linux. So going by the windows partition mgr from the screenshot, I will leave the 1st 2 partitions on the left alone and delete 2 on the right-- 180.62 GB and 5.98 GB.
These are labeled ext4 and "unknown" on the gparted screenshot.
But there is a question about the "extended partition" On the gparted screenshot it shows it contains 186.62 GB. Ext 4 and "unknown" contain 180.60 and 5.98 GB respectively.
So it looks like the extended partition contains both ext 4 and the unknown partition. This probably has something to do with encrypting the home directory. Does this mean if I delete ext 4 180.62 and the unknown partition 5.98, that the extended partition will disappear?
Why couldn't I just delete the extended partition? Wouldn't that also delete ext 4 and unknown?
So by ext 4 you mean the unnamed partition on the far right of the screenshot. It gets confusing switching from windows to linux.
You have that information from your earlier post when you listed the output from fdisk. There isn't much point in trying to get information on a computer with a Linux system by using windows. Windows will not tell you any more than some vague comment like "healthy partition" and can't recognize, read or write to Linux in a default install.
Also from your fdisk output, the only Linux partition you have where Mint could have been installed is sda5 and your swap is sda6.
Yes, your Extended partition contains both logical partitions, the Mint (sda5) and swap (sda6).
Quote:
Does this mean if I delete ext 4 180.62 and the unknown partition 5.98, that the extended partition will disappear?
No. You need to first delete the logical partitions then delete the Extended partition. Actually, there isn't really any reason to do that unless you insist on using the "Install Alongside" method as it needs free/unallocated space. Using the "Something Else" method which is basically a manual install, you can select which partition to use for /, /home and swap. You can shrink the current / partition and use part of that for a separate /home partition. I've not used the Install Alongside but I doubt that you will have that opportunity so you will need to do that later.
The advice about swap = 2 x RAM is old school back when RAM amts were tiny/expensive.
These days I usually go 1 x RAM (disk space is cheap) - that should be plenty for a home install.
yancek is right about the partitions and the order of deleting but the Mint, or Ubuntu, installer disk seems to assume that you have only the partition that Windows is on and the 'alongside' method will shrink that partition, leaving any "unallocated space" untouched.
The 'manual', or 'something else' option for partitioning will allow you to use the free space.
When you choose that option it should show you the exiting partitions, win being ntfs, and free space being unallocated. Create a new partition here but make sure it has a mount point (possibly, / ) and file system type. You could also create a swap partition, the system will run without it but better with, as long as it is there, size is perhaps academic.
yancek is right about the partitions and the order of deleting but the Mint, or Ubuntu, installer disk seems to assume that you have only the partition that Windows is on and the 'alongside' method will shrink that partition, leaving any "unallocated space" untouched.
The 'manual', or 'something else' option for partitioning will allow you to use the free space.
When you choose that option it should show you the exiting partitions, win being ntfs, and free space being unallocated. Create a new partition here but make sure it has a mount point (possibly, / ) and file system type. You could also create a swap partition, the system will run without it but better with, as long as it is there, size is perhaps academic.
Fred.
I tried installing with and without free space (Mint 17.1 Cinnamon). With the alongside option, if there is free space, then the installer uses that. If there is no free space, then the installer shrinks the windows partion.
I used gparted to set up and format my Mint and swap partitions and used the something else option in the installer. A month later I decided I wanted a separate /home partition. Had to start over, make three partitions and reinstall. But that's life sometimes.
I wonder if the 5 GB (probable swap) partition was actually formatted as a swap partition.
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