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I am new to Linux in general. As I am sure is the case with many of the new converts, I have an old XP machine that is getting slow and about to be unsupported so I decided to test the waters. I installed 13.10 along side XP only to find that my graphics chip doesn't support the Unity interface upgrade in 13.10 (no launcher, icons, etc). I did download 12.04 after the fact and confirmed that its interface does work (ran it from a flash drive). As I see it, I have 2 options: try to downgrade (which is officially unsupported) or remove 13.10 and install 12.04 fresh.

I looked up the process on removing 13.10, which is pretty simple (wipe out the partitions containing Ubunutu), but it also takes GRUB with it. I downloaded and tried to run EasyBCD to restore the master boot record, but it does not support XP Home. I don't have the original XP disc to repair it via that avenue either. Do I have any other options here that I don't know about? Thanks!

ugoleftillgorite
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GRUB shouldn't be necessary for Windows XP to run so I'm pretty confident you can do that, but you should always back-up your data.

Since the root cause is that you graphics chip isn't sufficient for Unity, you can skip the entire downgrade process by installing a different desktop environment.

To do so, you can boot into linux and open a terminal (if you are unable to open a terminal due to the graphics incompatibility, press ctrl + alt + F1 to start a new session without X running and log-in)

You can install a new desktop environment with apt-get. This article gives a few examples and screenshots. Perhaps a lightweight DE like XFCE would be a good choice, but just see what you like.

When you log in again, you can select your newly chosen desktop environment.

Hugo Buff
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  • Thank you, this got me up and running! I am very new to Linux and did not realize that you could have multiple DEs, this has totally sold me on Linux. Thanks for taking the time to help out a n00b instead of just marking this as a duplicate. I searched for hours before asking the question here, but sometimes you are too new to even know what you are searching for. – ugoleftillgorite Mar 12 '14 at 14:17
  • It's no problem. I guess technically the question is a duplicate, but a rollback wasn't necessarily the solution to the problem. Besides, the more duplicates, the easier it is to find the answer :) – Hugo Buff Mar 12 '14 at 14:32