Brian Weeden wrote:
I am finally ready to cut the cord after using Ubuntu for a couple
months now. I am currently dual-booting with Windows on the first
partition and Ubuntu on the 2nd and would like to get rid of windows
but need to make sure I'm not going to fubar my Ubuntu install.
Is grub installed on the first (ie windows) partition? In other
words, by removing that partition is it going to have an effect on
getting the system to boot?
Grub is usually installed into the MBR and contains components on the
Linux partition that contains /boot. It can be installed into a
partition, but then would be installed into the boot sector of your
Linux partition, and the Windows boot menu would need to be set up to
load that boot sector (Ubuntu setup doesn't do this, last I checked -
this is something that you'd need to have done yourself). You can tell
how the machine is set up based on the order that the boot loaders load
- if the order is Grub with Windows as an option, then it's installed
into the MBR; if the order is Windows loader with Ubuntu as an option
then Grub is installed into the boot sector of your Linux partition.
Also, will removing that partition change the order and mapping of
partitions in Ubuntu? RIght now my structure is as follows in order
from first partition to last on the HD:
It will depend on the tool you use to remove the Windows partition; some
of them will rewrite the partition table and renumber your primary
partitions (partitions numbered less then 5). If you use the basic Linux
or Windows fdisk, it shouldn't change the partition order.
I'm not sure if Ubuntu uses partition UUIDs (unique identifiers in the
partition's boot sector) or if it uses device nodes instead - take a
look at /etc/fstab, if the first column looks something like this line:
/dev/hda6 / reiserfs
defaults,auto,user_xattr,acl 1 1
then Ubuntu is using device nodes and you may have to update the file.
If it says something like
UUID=3e6be9de-8139-11d1-9106-a43f08d823a6 / reiserfs
defaults,auto,user_xattr,acl 1 1
or
LABEL=root / reiserfs
defaults,auto,user_xattr,acl 1 1
then it's more robust and should adjust as the partitions are renumbered
automatically.
Even if the partition order does change, it's not extremely difficult to
use a Live boot CD and rewrite your /etc/fstab file to point at the
correct partitions and/or update your Grub configuration. It isn't what
I'd consider simple as it requires work at the command line, but it's
not hard.
Jamie
/dev/sda (my only HD)
/dev/sda1 (windows ntfs partition)
/dev/sda3 ((ubuntu ext3 partition)
/dev/sda2 (extended patition)
/dev/sda5 (linux swap within the extended)
/dev/sda6 (fat32 within the extended)
Jamie
