I have a question (duh, but anyways).
On my computer, I have 3 OSes installed; Windows 7, Ubuntu 12.10 and CrunchBang 11 (based on Debian). I've been having some trouble with CrunchBang, and frankly, I'm done messing around with distributions that don't work properly.
Originally, I had installed Zorin OS 6 (based off Ubuntu 12.04 LTS) alongside my Windows installation, with 2 GB swap. I later installed Ubuntu 12.10 alongside all three of those, on a 15 GB partition, for testing purposes. As time went on, I started liking Ubuntu 12.10 more and more, but my disk space was limiting me.
The way Ubuntu installed itself was kind of weird. Instead of tacking itself on the end of the hard drive, it was put in the middle, right in between Windows and Zorin OS.
Recently, I replaced Zorin OS with CrunchBang, having thought that it was a great OS based on my experiences with the Live USB, but I've had a lot of problems with it freezing and crashing a lot, and it's getting a bit old having to reboot multiple times just to get CrunchBang to work.
So what I want to do is expand my Ubuntu installation into CrunchBang's partition, essentially erasing CrunchBang and merging the two partitions. Can I do this without reinstalling Ubuntu or without a lot of rebooting, and would it be as simple as removing the CrunchBang partition and just expanding Ubuntu? Here's how my hard drive is laid out:
/dev/sda1 (Diagnostics, NTFS, 15.00 GB) is Windows recovery.
/dev/sda2 (Bootable, NTFS, 100 MB) is GRUB (I think?).
/dev/sda3 (NTFS, 198.56 GB) is Windows 7.
/dev/sda4 (Extended, covering a total of 84.43 GB) is the parent of the following Linux partitions:
/dev/sda7 (EXT4, 14.48 GB) is Ubuntu.
/dev/sda5 (EXT4, 68.22 GB) is CrunchBang.
/dev/sda6 (linux-swap, 1.73 GB) is swap space.
So to make my question a little more technical, can I just erase sda5 and resize sda7 to take up the space sda5 previously occupied?
Also, GRUB is currently controlled by CrunchBang. What would be the commands to transfer control of GRUB back over to Ubuntu?
Thanks in advance, Sil
Yes, via a Live USB of Ubuntu you can use GParted to resize your partitions. There's a good tutorial located here:
Note: Make sure you backup any important information before making changes! Also, don't resize/move over your Ubuntu boot partition and when resizing, you can only expand into continuous unallocated space.
You need to reinstall grub-bootloader , follow this guide to reinstall grub. It will replace previous crunchbang grub.