Hi,

I have tried searching these forums for an answer to this, but (with my limited Linux knowledge) I have been unable to find one.

I have been running a Ubuntu/XP dual boot for a while now and I want to upgrade to 8.10, but (due the above mentioned lack of knowledge) I seem to have ended up with so many Linux images in Grub and, therefore I assume, on my system - that I would prefer to completely remove the old Ubuntu versions and start afresh with 8.10 and I am unsure of the best/safest way to do this.

I have already downloaded and burnt the iso, just want some advice on the best installation method and warnings about possible issues I may encounter.

For info:
I have two physical hard drives (one with XP ~ 180 gig and one with Linux & a FAT32 partition which I use to share between Xp/Linux, but has nothing important in it ~ 80 gig).

Thanks, in advance, for any help

You can remove the older kernels from the boot menu with "QGRUBEditor", or manually editing the "/boot/grub/menu.lst" file.

Easiest thing to do, and that I've done many times w/o issue (since I never do upgrades, always clean install)...

1. Boot live CD
2. Open Gparted (System/Admin/Partition Editor)
3. Look at the drive that has your Linux partitions
4. Right click them and delete them. (Note, not the fat32 share). If you're sure, click Apply. (No turning back after this).
5. When Gparted is done, Start the Install process.
6. When it comes time to Partitioning, Choose Manual
7. Setup the "unallocated" space however you see fit. Here's a basic way that I do it...

1 Partition that is roughly 1-2x your physical ram
Create As: Primary
File System - linux-swap
2. Rest of the unallocated space
Create As: Primary
Filesystem : ext3
Mount Point: /

Then start the Install Process. If you do it all right, that should set up your Ubuntu file system, without touching the fat32 share you have. If anything on that fat32 is important, back it up. It probably looks more complex than it is, but its quite simple. Probably not the only way, or maybe even the best way, to do this, but I've done it like this several times w/o issue.

Good luck

IGF

From reading his post, I don't think the kernel entries are the issue... I'm guessing they are taking up space(he might even be dual booting two different versions of Ubuntu). If they are in fact entries, and I misunderstood, then thats the way to go. You can comment out old or unused entries by just putting a # sign in front of "Title"... I usually don't recommend deleting entries like this, as you never know when/if you'll need them again. If you comment them out w/ the pound sign.. If the time comes you need them again, simply boot recovery mode, open up the menu editor, and remove the pound sign, and they are right back in grub.

IGF

Thank you for all the replies.

Your first post, IGF, was pretty much what I was after. I knew I could just edit out the kernels in Grub, but, although space isn't really an issue, I wasn't keen on the idea of leaving odd stuff just sitting around being unused. Now I know it is ok to just delete the partitions, all should be ok.

One more quick question (I hope) - is there an easy way to set up the partitions to keep the system files and the personal files separate so, in the event of needing to recover the system, my documents and other files are untouched?

Thank you, again, in advance

I believe some people put /home on a separate partition to accomplish this. I have never done that, never really felt the need because I keep pretty good backups, but I'm someone else can help you with that.

IGF

I don't find QGRUBEditor in either the MEPIS 7 or the Debian repositories. -- Is this a "standard" pkg, where might I find a .deb for it?

Hey... what happened to this package?
It was available in hardy, but i cant find it in intrepid. even if you look at packages.ubuntu.com it is only available for hardy.

EDIT: I think it is replaced with kgrubeditor.

Can't find kgrubeditor either -- not in KPackage for MEPIS 7, nor on the Debian site itself (Konqueror "deb:kgrubeditor").
Can't even find a "grubeditor".

OK, I did the install as per the instructions from IGF and Ubuntu is running fine, thank you.

BUT, I now cant boot into Windoze

When I select my XP install from the boot options I get:

Error 13: Invalid or unsupported executable format


I have read a few other posts on similar problems and it, normally, seems to be related to a GRUB issue so I thought it may help to post the relevant entry from menu.lst

# This entry automatically added by the Debian installer for a non-linux OS
# on /dev/sda1
title Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
root (hd0,0)
savedefault
chainloader +1

Thanks, in advance, for anyone who can help me with this!




** Edited to add that I THINK I saw (as Ubuntu was loading) that it is booting from (hd0,1) - would this mean that, somehow, the XP install has now swapped to (hd1,0)?? **

{hd1} means your 2nd hard-drive {,0} means your first partition.
can you post the output of fdisk -l ?

As requested, thank you:

Disk /dev/sda: 200.0 GB, 200049647616 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 24321 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0xcab10bee

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 23574 189358123+ 7 HPFS/NTFS
/dev/sda2 23576 24321 5992245 c W95 FAT32 (LBA)

Disk /dev/sdb: 81.9 GB, 81964302336 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 9964 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0009763e

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 249 2000061 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sdb2 * 250 5354 41005912+ 83 Linux
/dev/sdb4 5355 9964 37029825 b W95 FAT32


*** Edited to explain:
sda1 = XP
sda2 = HP Restore Partition (came on the original XP system)

sdb1 = Linux swap
sdb2 = Ubuntu
sdb4 = Shared partition (which was there on previous install - see first post in this thread - to enable me to easily access files betwenn XP/Linux)

This may be obvious to you, but thought it better to give too much info, rather than not enough ***

Filesystem types can be found with Grub. As sudo, go to the grub prompt (grub>) and enter commands: "geometry (hd0)" and "geometry (hd1)" and you will get output such as: Partition num: 4, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7
, the "0x7" means ntfs, "0x83" would be your Ubuntu.

You might try changing your menu.lst windows root (hd0,0) entry to "rootnoverify (hd0,0)".

These are the outputs from the grub prompt:

grub> geometry (hd0)
drive 0x80: C/H/S = 24321/255/63, The number of sectors = 390721968, /dev/sda
Partition num: 0, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x7
Partition num: 1, Filesystem type is fat, partition type 0xc

grub> geometry (hd1)
drive 0x81: C/H/S = 9964/255/63, The number of sectors = 160086528, /dev/sdb
Partition num: 0, Filesystem type unknown, partition type 0x82
Partition num: 1, Filesystem type is ext2fs, partition type 0x83
Partition num: 3, Filesystem type is fat, partition type 0xb

AS for the second part of your message, does that mean the Windows entry would then read:

Title Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
rootnoverify (hd0,0)
savedefault
chainloader +1

Thank you, for your help

Also, I don't know if this helps, but I just rebooted into Ubuntu and, immediately after I select the OS from the grub menu it definitely says "boot from (hd0,1) ext3 ...." didn't catch the rest of it, but it seems odd that it says hd0??

*** Added for extra info:

If I change boot order in the BIOS to boot from the XP disk first - XP starts ok. So it is obviously just an issue with grub pointing to the wrong place to boot XP.
***