Ok... here's my story: About a year ago, I installed Kubuntu 5.10 and Windows XP on my system. While Windows XP works fine, Kubuntu had one MAJOR problem: Every time I get a root prompt, I enter in the password and "conversation with SU filed." I find this very odd, as I can su to root in the command line without any problem.

With the help a few people at the LinuxQuestions community, I changed my root password. I restarted the system, the problem was still there.

I talked in person with a real Linux geek, and he said pretty much that he had no idea what the problem was, said that re-installing the whole Linux install was probably a good idea.

So, I burned a DVD of the latest version of Kubuntu (6.10).

Here's my question... How do I upgrade the whole installation WITHOUT screwing up the bootloader OR my Windows install (this is my only machine, and if it's not operational, I'm screwed).

For info on upgrading Kubuntu, go to:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EdgyUpgrades

Following their recommended instructions, you should not have any problems. To my knowledge, no Linux distro will harm your Windows partition during install/upgrade.

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BACKUP... BACKUP... BACKUP...
PC's are man-made, and nothing man-made is perfect.

Thank you. My question was more to whether or not my bootloader would get screw up at all.

From what I gathered from the upgrade notes, I guess I'd have to do two upgrades, one from 5.10 to 6.06 and another from 6.06 to 6.10.

I'm thinking about just doing the upgrade without a CD.

Again, is there any way to fix the weird root password problems I'm having (see above post)?

I suppose every upgrade is slightly different, with some working well, others not so good.

Over the last few days, I decided I wanted to install a couple of different versions of Linux to test on what was a dual boot system for Win XP and Ubuntu 6.10, which was split between a 40Gb drive for Windows & and 80Gb drive for Ubuntu.

My first job was to repartition the 80Gb drive to free up space using a gparted live cd which I did and everything seemed to work ok.

From there, I installed Mandriva on one of the new partition's I'd created - this reinstalled Grub and overwrote the Ubuntu installed grub, leaving me with only Win XP & Mandriva as bootable.

After that, I installed Knoppix on a new partition, as with Mandriva, this reinstalled Grub leaving me with only Win Xp & Knoppix.

At that point, I edited the Menu.lst file that was installed by Knoppix (as the last installation) to include the settings for my original Ubuntu installation and the Mandriva installation.

Everything started up fine. I could boot into Win XP, Ubuntu, Mandriva annd Knoppix.

I then found that when I shrunk the 80Gb partition, some of the app's installed in Ubuntu wouldn't work properly - Because it was a test installation, I hadn't backed up because I was expecting to have to reinstall anyway.

I reinstalled Ubuntu, fully expecting Ubuntu to create a new Grub installation and for me to need to recreate the settings so I could boot into Mandriva & Knoppix.

I was pleasantly surprised to see Grub start up with the options for Windows XP, Ubuntu and it had added the Mandriva and Knoppix settings which it had found on other partitions.

Ubuntu's creation of the boot loader seems to work exceptionally well, with it considering that other operating systems would exist and actively looking for them.

I would guess the boot loader would continue working as before, although, to be on the safe side, I'd make sure I had backups just in case.