[Techtalk] getting rid of windows on a dual boot machine

Anne Wainwright anotheranne at fables.co.za
Sat Sep 18 20:45:59 UTC 2010


Hello, Alison & Daniel,

Thanks for the comments, mine own below.


On Sat, 18 Sep 2010 07:51:20 -0700
Alison Chaiken <alchaiken at gmail.com> wrote:

> > From: Anne Wainwright <anotheranne at fables.co.za>
> > 1  delete the Windows partition
> > 2  create a new linux partition in the space freed up
> > 3  install file system on new partition
> 
> Anne, your plan is certainly sound if you have an older Linux version
> that does not include lvm, lvm2 or grub2.    If your existing
> filesystems are in a logical volume group, you have to decide whether
> to create a new volume group, create a new logical volume in the old
> group, or to create a new physical partition.     Fedora 13 at least
> has a  graphical tool to help you with the process.   Further, editing
> the grub.conf file is more complex (but supposedly better!) with
> grub2.    Note also that the grub.conf file you need may now be in
> /boot/grub rather than in /etc.
Ubuntu 9.1 Karmic Koala is installed, and does use Grub2

On a 40GB disc /dev/sda we have 4 partitions.
dev/sda1  19GB NTFS with Windows bootable
dev/sda2  12GB ext3 mounted at / not bootable
dev/sda3   8GB ext3 mounted at /home not bootable
dev/sda4 1.1GB linux swap

this is probably not the ubuntu default but is what we arrived at
during the installation process.

So probably no issue with deleting the old ~/ partition but the problem
is that of growing sda2 into the space vacated by sda3. That would be
why Daniel mentioned checking that the root and home partitions are
contiguous to one another. Not sure how you do that but maybe some
suitable tools on one of my live cd's (R.I.P.). I'll check that out.

Presumably I can delete the NTFS partition, and recreate a new linux
one in its place, or maybe just changinging the partition type will do
the job at one blow.

All for now, I'll do some checking as soon as I get a spare minute.

thanks
Anne

> 
> Note that rescuing a system with a live CD is now more complicated
> than it used to be due to all these changes.    I've been meaning to
> write up a HOWTO about these processes for the Fedora docs team, but I
> haven't quite gotten around to  it .   .    .  If you do have lvm2 and
> need help, feel free to ask.
> 
> Certainly more than one backup is a good idea!
> 


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