How to uninstall linux mint

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Uninstall Linux Mint easily .

Uninstall Linux Mint easily .

Post by Dupo » Tue Aug 24, 2010 8:14 pm

I translated in english a reflection made by a LinuxMint user : Jobastr, and some Linuxmint-fr users.

I would submit to you a reflection made by LinuxMint-fr users. Why a simple solution to restore the MBR when deleting a Linux OS (like Mint or other) didn’t exist in Linux Mint ?

For a beginner, restoring the MBR isn’t easy. would it be possible to imagine a solution for this problem ?
A solution that would allow Mr and Mrs Everybody, to uninstall an OS without being left with a black screen.

Thanks for your opinion.

Re: Uninstall Linux Mint easily .

Post by tdockery97 » Tue Aug 24, 2010 8:57 pm

Re: Uninstall Linux Mint easily .

Post by markcynt » Wed Aug 25, 2010 6:20 am

Re: Uninstall Linux Mint easily .

Post by Dupo » Wed Aug 25, 2010 8:07 pm

some LinuxMint-fr users don’t speak english, so I translated the answer of one Linuxmint-fr user to your replies.

The MBR backup would be made only in the case of a dual boot, indeed.
(Quote: you said we must use a repair/restore disk for Windows).
Ok, but it’s not accessible to everyone to use it. How Mr. or Ms. Everybody can know that the problem is just grub ? They don’t even know this name!

Else, it’s not easy for a beginner to perform a system backup restoration, so he dares not even typing command lines with the Windows CD (eg : Windows XP). Besides, many people don’t even know how to use the installation CD and perhaps they never launched it.

Often the Windows CD is required . Except nowadays. Three quarters of PCs are sold with OEM CD or without any CD. So it’s impossible to use the CD as it does not provide this kind of manipulation.

(Quote: you said we must use a Linux rescue disk to restore Grub)
Same debate! Once you are stuck in front of this black screen, how to know that the problem come from there ? How are we gonna get this kind of CD/disk when we lost access to our computer?

Results: complete Windows reinstallation (for those who know to do that), user thinking that Linux destroyed the Windows partition. Or return the PC to a professional (and yes this is the case for some). In the end, Linux has disgusted more than anything else the user who simply wanted to uninstall Linux because it didn’t interest him anymore.
————————————

Well, LinuxMint-fr users suggest that Linux Mint have a tool or a program (eg. in the livecd) that would easily uninstall Linux Mint for a beginner. By restoring the origin MBR (after a copy of it during installation of Linux Mint) and who could why not delete the Linux partitions. Thus, the novice could recover his system to the origin (Windows), if he don’t want to use Linux Mint anymore. Do you understand what I want to say ?

Re: Uninstall Linux Mint easily .

Post by tdockery97 » Thu Aug 26, 2010 1:32 am

Re: Uninstall Linux Mint easily .

Post by vincent » Thu Aug 26, 2010 5:08 am

This is one of the most comprehensive guides to uninstalling Linux as I have ever seen: http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/linux-uninstall.html

The problem is that installing/uninstalling an OS and removing/installing a bootloader isn’t really a simple nor easy task. There are ways to «dumb it down» for «Mr. and Mrs. Everyone», so to speak, but that’s often still not enough for clueless users (e.g. Ubuntu’s Ubiquity installer makes it easy for anybody to install Ubuntu. yet many people still trip up during the partitioning process), but because there is a variety of situations a clueless user could find him/herself in, there just isn’t an one-size-fits-all kind of solution (and that’s partly the reason why the article I linked to is so long).

Re: Uninstall Linux Mint easily .

Post by tuBox » Mon Sep 20, 2010 1:49 am

Re: Uninstall Linux Mint easily .

Post by AaronDude » Wed Sep 22, 2010 10:40 pm

yeah I wish there was an easy way to uninstall as well. I feel the need to get something off my chest first. This computer hasn’t been functioning properly since I got it. I sent it to Acer four times and they said there was no problem. The problem was something was causing slowdowns and one of the symptoms was skippy video and pretty much just static for sound. I got some smart guy to tell me it was probably the graphics card they put in there on the windows 7 forum. before I sent it in four times I installed linux mint on it. I had the same problem so I knew it was not windows 7 and hardware. Anywho just a couple days ago I removed the graphics card in an effort to at least get the machine working somewhat properly so I aint stuck with a 750 dollar 30 pound brick. that fixed my issue completely on windows 7 anyway. Linux Mint did not want to load using the onboard graphics so what I did was take the linux partitions in windows 7 and delete them. I learned that was a big mistake. Luckly I had recovery discs I made a year ago so I booted from the cd drive and followed the instructions to load the OS on again and delete everything. after about five hours of this windows 7 would still not start but I knew it was on the hard drive. for some reason grub wanted to boot something but grub didn’t exsist so I just got a black screen with an error message on it. So what I did was find my linux mint 8 dvd and then reloaded the linux mint OS which also fixed grub again so I could boot windows. I was pretty happy it was fixed. I didn’t understand the partitions for linux mint so I just let it do it automatically which kind of sucked and it split my 1TB hard drive in two even parts one for linux and one for windows 7.

Anyway I would kind of like to dump linux mint 8 now that I know windows 7 does actually run well. I’m using linux right now however and I just don’t seem to have a use for it other than internet and listening to music and such. I kind of like those home made games for windows and well linux IMO is just too complicated. I love the programs windows has and how easy it is. Linux Mint looks very much like windows but I just like windows better period.

Would I be better off just getting gparted on a live cd and shrink the linux mint partition if I can figure out which one it is? I would kind of like to just use windows but all these instructions have me worried and confused. The link that was posted seems to be the most helpful however. I just wish there was some way to do this easily. I just don’t know what I’m doiin’ unfortunately. I also don’t like how grub always wants to start linux mint by default. I wish it could be windows 7 at least.

Re: Uninstall Linux Mint easily .

Post by tdockery97 » Wed Sep 22, 2010 11:43 pm

Источник

4 Ways to Uninstall Software in Linux Mint

At some point, you will have to remove programs from your Linux Mint. In this post, you will learn 4 different ways to uninstall software in Linux Mint.

INTRODUCTION

Usually, in Linux, there are always several ways to do one thing. For example, to install/uninstall an application, some prefer the use of the terminal, while others stick to a software manager.

It also happens there several ways to uninstall software in Linux Mint. I will show you 4 ways to do that and you will be able to pick your favorite.

1. The simplest way is to right-click on an application in the main menu.
2. You can uninstall an application using the software manager.
3. If you use Synaptic, you can also do it from there.
4. Finally, you can always go conservative and use the Linux Mint terminal.

The first two options are clearly focused on the novice user, while the last two are for more advanced users. So, let us start.

VIDEO TUTORIAL

1. Using the right-click in the menu

This is the easiest way to uninstall software in Linux Mint. This method is intended for novices and it is the simplest way. I must confess that I have been using Linux Mint for years and I did not know about this feature.

So, you have to open the Linux Mint menu and look for a program you want to uninstall. I will be uninstalling GIMP image editor as an example. You right-click on the program and you will see the option to uninstall it.

After that, you have to type your user password. Then, you need to confirm that you want to uninstall the software. After this, the program will be removed from your system.

As you can see, you can uninstall software in Linux Mint can be really quick.

By the way, if you liked this Linux Mint icons, you can read how to install them in these Linux Mint icons and themes post.

2. Using the Software Manager

The second way to uninstall software in Linux Mint is through the Software Manager. So, you open Linux Mint Software Manager.

Then, search for the program you want to uninstall. Again, I will use GIMP here.

Finally, click on the Remove button and it will start the uninstall process.

As you can see, this way requires more steps than the previous one, but it may be useful if you are testing different programs and you need to remove a program without leaving the Software Manager.

3. Using Synaptic package manager

Similarly to the previous way, you can uninstall programs on Linux Mint is by using the Synaptic package manager. Synaptic is also a software manager but it is a bit more advanced than the Linux Mint Software Manager.

So, open Synaptic from the main menu.

Next, in the search field, type the name of the program you want to remove. Again, in this case, I will remove GIMP. Select the package and right-click on it.

Here, you have two options to uninstall it:

1. Mark for Removal
2. Mark for Complete Removal

Mark for Removal will just remove a program. Basically, it will do the same what has been done through the Linux Mint menu and through the Software Manager. The second option, Mark for Complete Removal, in addition to removing the program, will also remove all the configuration files in your /etc directory. So, this way you can keep your system clean.

Note that this uninstall does not remove the configuration files from your home directory. If you want to completely get rid of all files associated with a program, you need to remove its config files from your home directory manually. To find these files, unable “Show hidden files” in the view menu of your file manager and search for folders with the program name you want to remove. Usually, they are located right in your home or in

So, for complete removal, choose the Complete removal option and click on the Apply button.

Synaptic will show you a summary of what is going to be done. In my example, you can see many programs will be unchanged and only GIMP will be removed. After you click apply, GIMP will be uninstalled.

4. Using the terminal

Similarly to Synaptic way shown above, you have two options to remove software in Linux Mint using the terminal. Moreover, as you will see below, you can also remove orphan packages using the terminal.

Standard way

So, the most common and standard way is with this command:

And this will be equivalent to the simple remove option in Synaptic. That is it will remove the package but not its configuration files in /etc .

Completely remove (advanced)

However, if you want to completely remove the program you can use the command purge instead of remove .

And this will be equivalent to the Complete Removal in Synaptic — it will remove the package and the configuration files located in /etc .

Both the purge and remove commands will show you a summary of what is going to be removed. Read it carefully and confirm if you agree to remove listed packages. Be careful here because sometime purge may remove important programs as dependencies.

Remove orphan packages

Finally, using the terminal, you can also remove orphan packages using the following command.

And if you want to remove the GIMP configuration files from your home directory, you can also remove them from the command line.

Now all GIMP files are removed.

As you can see the command line way is even more advanced because you are given more flexibility and more options here. For example, we did not see any autoremove option before when we tried to remove through the Linux Mint menu, through the Software Manager, and in the Synaptic package manager.

Conclusion

In Linux, there are always different ways to do the same thing and it is nice because each of these options fits certain users. The different ways to uninstall software in Linux Mint proves it. Some are ideal for newbies whereas others are better for more powerful users.

If you know more ways to uninstall programs on Linux Mint, please leave a comment below.

If you liked this Linux Mint there, you can find how to configure it in this Linux Mint themes post. There are also a list of thing you can do after installing Linux Mint.

Источник

How to uninstall linux mint

Updated: July 17, 2009

This article was suggested to me by a reader called krishna. I realized this was a very important, very common topic — and quite often so easily overlooked by Linux users all over the world. It stands to logic, really. You install an operating system — so you expect to be able to uninstall it, undo the installation, remove the operating system without any trace left to its presence. How do you do that in Linux?

While the idea is a very logical, it is very difficult to answer. This is probably the reason why so many Linux users never bothered answering it. Not to worry. In this tutorial, I will teach you how you can fully and safely remove Linux installations from your system and remain with aВ bootable, working machine. Let’s begin.

Install Linux

The first step in getting Linux onto your system is by downloading a distribution of your choice, burning the .iso image to a CD, booting a computer from the CD, and then installing the distribution. To learn how to do that, please refer to my myriad LinuxВ reviews and tutorials, all of which explain in great, rich detail the installation procedure for different distributions.В Now let’s examine several test cases.

Single operating system

This is one of the most common solutions that most people will use. A single instance of an operating system is installed.

Two operating systems in a dual boot configuration

This is another very common scenario. Many new Linux users will be recent converts, all of which have previously and are currently using Windows. Many will keep their Windows installation and use Linux as a second or secondary operating system alongside their existing Windows installation. This configuration is known as dual boot. Please refer to this tutorial to learn how it can be created.

More than two operating systems

This configuration is usually used by power users, who will have several Windows releases and several Linux distributions and possibly other operating systems installed on their machine. Practically, there is very little difference between a dual-bootВ and a multiple-boot system.

Understand how things work

Whichever configuration you choose, it is important to understand how things work. When you install an operating system, several things are done.

Disk layout is changed

Disks are logically divided into sections called partitions. Operating systems are installed onto these partitions, when they requires at least one and usually no more than a single partition to install to. To better understand partitioning, please read the very extensive GParted tutorial.

The partitions are also formatted with one or another filesystem type, which is a logical data structure method that allows operating systems to interact with the hard disk. For example, NTFS is a Windows filesystem, EXT3 is a Linux filesystem.

A bootloader is installed

When you start your computer, the first thing you see is the BIOS screen. After that, an operating system boots. But who does it do that? Well, the answer is simple.

Hard disks contain sectors, physical parcels onto which logical data is written in the form of a filesystem operations. The very first sector is reserved for a tiny bit of code called the bootloader, which contains a basic set of instructions required to kickstart the operating system boot. The first sector is called the Master Boot Record (MBR) and it points to the active partition where important files necessary for the booting of the operating system can be found.

Every operating system installs this or that bootloader. Windows uses the NT Loader (NTLDR). Linux uses the popular GRUB. Reading my tutorial linked to the left will grant you a much deeper understanding into how GRUB works. So the boot sequence goes like this:

• BIOS looks for the first bootable device (hard disk) and initiates it.
• The MBR is read and the relevant partition is chosen.
• Boot files on the relevant partitions are loaded into memory and the booting of the system begins.

Boot process

The boot process is accompanied by visual cues that allow the user to interact with the system. The first is the BIOS menu, where you can change the boot order of your devices, enable and disable peripherals and other tasks.

Next comes a bootloader menu. On Windows, you do not usually see this menu, as it’s hidden from view when there’s only one operating system installed. On Linux, the menu is normally displayed, usually offering several boot options.

After this stage, you reach your desktop and things are just the way you know them. However, it is important that you remember the sequence of events that took place.

Operating systems are not self-sustained entities. They require the presence of several factors to be able to function, namely the hard disk and the partitioning layout, which the operating system uses for permanent storage of its files, the bootloader that points to the right files and allows the system to boot, the BIOS, which recognizes and properly initializes the hardware. Take away any one of these and your system will not boot.

Another very critical thing to remember is that on a machine with no operating system installed, nothing will happen past the BIOS stage. Since the hard disks are empty, there is no boot sector and no bootloader installed in it. Therefore, once BIOS initializes the primary boot device, nothing will happen. The boot sequence will simply fail.

This means that uninstalling an operating system usually means leaving your machine unbootable . It is important for you to remember this. The only way to maintain desktop functionality is if there’s more than a single operating system installed. You remove one or more, but that’s ok, as long as there’s at least one instance of an operating system capable of completing the boot sequence. Now that we understand what uninstalling an operating system means, let’s do it.

Uninstall Linux

Operating systems will not work without their boot files or if they are never called by the bootloader. Therefore, to remove the presence of an operating system, it is enough to dereference is from the bootloader menu. Alternatively, you can also delete its files or replace them with another operating system. So let’s examine our test cases again.

Single operating system

If you have a single operating system, removing it will render the machine unbootable. So any which way you to choose to get rid of is perfectly acceptable. This method is true for just about any operating system, including Windows.

• You can delete all the files on the disks; this will render the system unbootable.
• You can format the partitions where the operating system is installed.
• You can delete the partitions where the operating system is installed or even delete the entire partition table.
• You can uninstall the bootloader.
• You can install another operating systemВ on top of the existing one, simply overwriting its files.

Two operating systems in a dual boot configuration

This is the case that really interests us. We will focus on the classic case — Windows and Linux. If you’ve read my GRUB tutorial, you will have learned by now that GRUB install itself into the MBR and replaces the Windows bootloader that existed there.

When you uninstall Linux, which we will do shortly, you remove the GRUB stage2 from the system. GRUB stage2 contains the crucial files that allow it to boot your installed instances of Linux or transfer the boot controlВ to Windows. This means that by removing Linux, you will also cripple the Windows installation. It will be intact, but unbootable.

This is because the Linux bootloader will still be present after you remove the Linux installation. To restore Windows functionality, you will have to install the Windows bootloader again. It will overwrite the GRUB present in the MBR and you’ll be back to being able to use Windows once more. Now, to uninstall Linux, there are several options:

• You can boot from a live CD and delete or format the Linux partitions.
• You can boot into Windows and delete or format the Linux partitions.

Now, please note that by default, Windows cannot read data from partitions formatted in Linux filesystems like EXT3, EXT4, JFS, ReiserFS, and others, however the Disk Management utility can see these partitions. It will label them as Unknown .

There is a way to allow Windows to be able to read and write to Linux filesystems. Please read this tutorial for more details.

Furthermore, to learn more how to work with the Disk Management utility in Windows, please read my How to partition and format hard disks in Windows article.

To remove Linux, open the Disk Management utility, select the partition(s) where Linux is installed and then format them or delete them. If you delete the partitions, the device will have all its space freed. To make good use of the free space, create a new partition and format it.

But our work is not done. There’s the bootloader issue to fix.

Fix the bootloader

This needs to be done on next reboot. What you need to do is restore the Master Boot Record . There are several tools that can do the trick, I will mention just two:

Super Grub Disk

Super Grub Disk is intended to run from a floppy disk or CD and is used for system rescue. Most importantly, it can be used to restore boot loaders, including GRUB, LILO and even Windows boot loader.

Ultimate Boot CD for Windows

This is one of the most important tools a Windows user can have. It is a complete bootable Windows kernel, packaged with tens of useful utilities in a range of categories. Most importantly, UBCD4WIN can fix the MBR quickly and easily. If you have a Windows CD, you can also boot from it, go into the Recovery Console and manually restore the MBR, although this is a procedure for more advanced users. Let’s take a look at each option separately.

Windows Recovery Console

Boot from Window CD. After a while, you’ll reach the screen where you have to choose between a setup and the Recovery Console. Press R to get into the Recovery Console.

Provide the administrator’s password when asked:

Then simply type the following command:

After that, write quit to exit and reboot. And that’s it.

Ultimate Boot CD for Windows

This mighty tool also has the Recovery Console, so you can use it the same way you did before. Or you can boot into the live desktop and use a number of tools.

Under Programs > Disk Tools > Partition , you will find both MBRWizard and MbrFix .

Super GRUB Disk

Super GRUB Disk also lets you fix the bootloader, be it LILO, GRUB or NTLDR. Just burn the .iso and let it boot. The main menu is very ugly, but it’s quite simple to follow:

That’s it. From now on, the principle is the same for three, four or a million operating systems. Just follow the same train of actions.

Conclusion

Uninstalling operating systems is not a simple thing. It’s a complicated issue that requires quite a bit of knowledge, including the understanding of how computers work, the boot sequence, the hard disk & partitioning vocabulary, the bootloader.

It comes as no small wonder that so many people avoid this topic. Furthermore, it does hurt many Linux users that one of their peers should abandon the world of freedom and whatnot and go back to using Microsoft software.

Regardless what your motives are, this tutorial provides you with the tools necessary to remove Linux installations from your system and still maintain a bootable, operable machine. I would very much like to believe that no Linux user would ever take a step back and abandon his/her distribution, but in a real world, this happens and having the right tools for the task guarantees a painless transition. I hope you’ve learned something new. Enjoy.

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