My current setup:
Windows 7
Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
My partition setup is this. (I used EasyBCD to resolve Grub) I followed this tutorial. It works flawlessly but i seldom use win7, so i plan to install win7 in virtualbox, and just delete win7 and install another distro.
- sda1 - (Probably system reserved for windows???)
- sda2 - Drive C
- sda3 - Drive D (NTFS), shared by both Win7 and Ubuntu
- sda5 - /boot (This is where i installed ubuntu)
- sda6 - /
- sda7 - swap
- sda8 - /home
My questions are:
- Since i installed Grub in /boot and use EasyBCD to fix Grub so that it appears during boot time,Is it okay to just delete the windows 7 partitions? Both Drive C and Drive D. Wouldn't i have a problem with booting since i think win7 takes control of the MBR???
- What's the best linx distro to work alongside ubuntu 12.04 with shared /home partition.
Thanks in advance.
Can't really understand this question right. Use
boot-repair
to fix general GRUB problems.From my experience, wiping the windows partitions never influences the other linux OS unless you execute stuff from them or you still have some sensitive data.
Windows will take control of the boot EFI partition, in your case I think it's sda1, when you first install it. After that you can access the boot EFI and modify it to your needs (this is what the ubuntu installer did).
So, theoretically you can wipe sda2 and 3, but not sda1 because it will wipe the ubuntu boot data together with the rest. You can clean the old windows efi files from sda1 afterwards in ubuntu.
I think you could use pretty much any distro similar to ubuntu on the same home (forked ones for example, like Mint).
As mentioned in the other answer, it's probably possible to share /home between two distros, but it's not recommended. This previous questions has some more information on this topic - A common /home partition for multiple Linux distributions
You can just delete the Windows partitions, grub should still work. If it doesn't, it's very easy to fix it with a live CD, see How to repair/restore/reinstall Grub2 with a Live CD for instructions on how to do this, but I do not think you will need to.
Also, a clarification. You didn't install Ubuntu on /boot, mostly you installed it on /, /boot just contains the Grub files.
I would leave sda1 alone, but Drive C and D can most likely be deleted without any problem.