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Too many Ubuntus

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Too many Ubuntus
singularity
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#21
2010-10-03, 10:10 PM (This post was last modified: 2010-10-04, 04:34 AM by singularity.)
When you delete /dev/sdb5, the other logical partitions will be renumbered. Because of the renumbering that will take place, you can't have any partition with a number > 5 loaded, so you can't delete it from your Ubuntu on /dev/sdb7 -- so you'll need to do it from the Ubuntu CD, Windows, etc.

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Also, you'll want to make sure your /etc/fstab is mounting by UUID -- because /dev/sdb7 will be something else (/dev/sdb5 or /dev/sdb6) after you delete the /dev/sdb5 partition.

From a terminal,
>> sudo gedit /etc/fstab
In your /etc/fstab, if a line begins with "/dev/sdb7", then you need to replace it with "UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx". Leave the rest of the line alone. If no lines have "/dev/sdb7", then you're already good to go.

If you need to determine the UUID of /dev/sdb7, open a new terminal:
>> blkid | grep sdb7

You should get an output like:
/dev/sdb7: UUID="xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx" TYPE="ext4"
Copy the UUID hexadecimal code to /etc/fstab.
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singularity
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#22
2010-10-04, 05:15 AM
I thought about this some more. If you go ahead and delete /dev/sdb5, then renumbering of your other logical partitions is going to cause your /dev/sdb7 Ubuntu to fail to boot. If you still really want to remove the unnecessary Ubuntu entries and/or reclaim that ~100GiB, then some of your options are as below:

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If you just want to hide the boot entries for Ubuntu on /dev/sdb5, then you can manually edit GRUB2's config. To edit GRUB2's configuration file, follow the directions of the last bullet point here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Grub2#User-defined%20Entries .[INDENT]Some of the cons are going to be that you won't be able to use that 100GiB and the entries will probably come back after kernel updates or any other time update-grub is run. On the up-side, you're free to reclaim that space by deleting all old Ubuntu installs when installing Ubuntu 10.10 -- which should be on 10/10/10 (less than a week from now).
[/INDENT]A simple way to reclaim that space (and update your grub menu) is to reformat /dev/sdb5 and have it mounted to its own directory. Then when you run "sudo update-grub", the only Ubuntu detected will be your preferred one on /dev/sdb7.[INDENT]If you then want it automatically mounted during boot, you can add an entry for it to /etc/fstab. Wikipedia's article details the formatting of fstab: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fstab
[/INDENT]The other simple way to reclaim the space is to redo the installation procedure. Make sure to choose manual partitioning so you can delete all of /dev/sdb5 through /dev/sdb8. Then create a new partition for swap and / in the now unallocated space. (Since Ubuntu 10.10 comes out in less than a week, I wouldn't recommend this now.)
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Hazzy
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#23
2010-10-04, 04:01 PM
Is updating from Ubuntu 10.4 to 10.10 like Vista to Windows 7, or is it just a large update pack? It seems really inefficient to require clean installs but that is the impression I get from your post.

I like the sound of your second option. It would work like a separate Harddrive, right? The space is still usable though, so until I need room for a 300 GB file or something, I do not see any problems with it.

What happens if I do not have it mounted automatically during boot? Does it not load for any OS or does it just take a little longer when I want to access something (for the first time on that power-on)?

I right click on the unallocated space and select "Format to", but it brings up a long list of types I know nothing about.

Could I back up my current Ubuntu, pop it in a safe spot, format all of my un-used partitions and merge them into one, reinstall Ubuntu, and then restore my files and settings?
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Russt
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#24
2010-10-04, 10:56 PM
Yeah. Backing up your /home directory should do the trick, as far as files and settings go. You'll have to reinstall any software you had, though.

Also for reformatting the other partition you probably should choose whatever format it currently is (ext3 I think?) and then choose some random mount point for it.
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Jamie_Kurosawa
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#25
2010-10-05, 12:29 AM
Russt Wrote:Yeah. Backing up your /home directory should do the trick, as far as files and settings go. You'll have to reinstall any software you had, though.

Also for reformatting the other partition you probably should choose whatever format it currently is (ext3 I think?) and then choose some random mount point for it.

You might want to backup the /etc folder for reference purposes if you changed any settings in configuration files and may need to look at them again to restore any settings you may have had set a custom way. You don't need to restore the /etc files, just see whats they may or may not have had you had customized and re-edit the existing ones if needed.
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singularity
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#26
2010-10-05, 02:14 AM
Hazzy Wrote:Is updating from Ubuntu 10.4 to 10.10 like Vista to Windows 7, or is it just a large update pack? It seems really inefficient to require clean installs but that is the impression I get from your post.
I use Fedora myself, but Ubuntu's wiki should have the details: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

As for fixing GRUB vs. clean install, the main thing is that I don't want you to get left at GRUB's command line due to GRUB not being able to find Ubuntu's root directory. If you still want to pursue the fix GRUB (if necessary) option, then these directions should work: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Grub2#Recover%20Grub%202%20via%20LiveCD .

Note that you'll have to reboot in between deleting /dev/sdb5 and growing your current sdb7 + following those directions. Then instead of sdaX, it should be sdbX where X is the partition number of sdb7 if/after it is renumbered. The grub-install line should point to the hard disk that the BIOS gives priority to during boot.

To summarize the major steps for the fix GRUB2 option:
1. Make sure /etc/fstab uses UUID to mount /
2. Reboot to Ubuntu Live CD or another partition manager. Delete /dev/sdb5 (and possibly also /dev/sdb6).
3. Reboot so /dev/sdb7 and /dev/sdb8 get their new number.
4. Go back to Ubuntu Live CD or that other partition manager.
5. Move and/or resize your remaining Ubuntu's partitions.
6. Restore/fix GRUB2.

As you can see, doing a clean install has less steps so there are less possible things that might go wrong.

Hazzy Wrote:I like the sound of your second option. It would work like a separate Harddrive, right? The space is still usable though, so until I need room for a 300 GB file or something, I do not see any problems with it.

What happens if I do not have it mounted automatically during boot? Does it not load for any OS or does it just take a little longer when I want to access something (for the first time on that power-on)?

I right click on the unallocated space and select "Format to", but it brings up a long list of types I know nothing about.
It'd be a separate partition... When everything is setup, accessing it is very seamless.

To illustrate, here's what you could do:

>> mkdir /home/chris/data
>> mount /dev/sdb5 /home/chris/data
or
>> mkdir /mnt/data
>> mount /dev/sdb5 /mnt/data
Or use whatever directory that you want. And you can access anything stored on that partition in the specified directory.

If it doesn't get mounted automatically at boot, you'd have to manually mount the directory to your specified folder. If you let the system automatically mount the partition when you access it (via Nautilus or another file manager), it would usually get mounted at /media/xxxxxxxx (or /mnt instead of /media) where the x's are some randomly generated sequence of hexadecimal/alphanumeric characters. So it would be different every time.

Format to ext3 or ext4. (Personally, I'd format to ext4.)

Hazzy Wrote:Could I back up my current Ubuntu, pop it in a safe spot, format all of my un-used partitions and merge them into one, reinstall Ubuntu, and then restore my files and settings?
The other posters covered this, reiterating.. All personal settings should be saved at /home. Save a copy of everything you changed in /etc so you can easily reapply those changes (if necessary) later on.

Personally, I'd reformat that /dev/sdb5 and make it a new /home directory (transferring the current /home over -- most importantly all hidden files+folders). Then when you update Ubuntu or even try other Linux distributions, most/all your settings should be transferred over -- as long as you specify that partition as /home during installation. Also, all data you keep on /home should be safe because the partition won't be touched during install.
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Hazzy
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#27
2010-10-09, 02:03 PM
It would appear as though I broke my computer.

Or the booting, at least. I installed Linux Mint out of curiosity. I preferred Ubuntu, so I formatted the partition Mint was on and what I think was it's Linux-swap. The computer functioned just fine until I tried to reboot.
It starts out with normal BIOS(?) stuff, "Loading Operating System..." for a bit... and then breaks. It says something about not being able to find device, list a long UUID, then goes into grub rescue. I spent around an hour or so Googling about this and have come up with nothing. Internet tells me to do this, I do, nothing happens. Internet tells me to do that, the file does not exist, nothing happens. I was Googling via my mom's laptop, and I am currently posting this from Firefox on the LiveCD (demo).

How do I fix my booting issue? Sad

sudo fdisk -l
 Spoiler

Boot Info Script
 Spoiler

I have to be somewhere soon, so I apologize for not being able to provide more information. When I get back, I will register on the Ubuntu forums to see how they can help. SP has techy people and I do not have to deal with registering and finding the right forum and all that. Thanks
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