0

Apologies if this is a duplicate, but I have already read several other questions and answers, first and none seem to answer my question...

I Was running Windows XP and installed Ubuntu using the Windows Installer. When I turn my computer on now, the menu comes up asking me to select whether I want to boot Windows or Ubuntu. Is it possible to just have it automatically boot Ubuntu and not ask as I don't ever want to use XP again?

EDITED 20/3: After closer looking, have realised that what I'm talking about it NOT the Grub menu -- it's before that -- seems like it's Windows asking me this? Does anybody know what I'm talking about? Thanks.

user260025
  • 1
  • 1
  • Yes. Edit your grub menu.lst and then update-grub. Of course, you'll have however much disk space on the XP partition wasted. – Elliott Frisch Mar 19 '14 at 20:35
  • 1
    If you don't want to use xp, why don't you reinstall ubuntu and delete xp? Or, you can simply format winxp partition using gparted, and use it as ubuntu partition. – Dusan Milosevic Mar 19 '14 at 20:38
  • The reason I installed using the Windows Installer is that my laptop is ancient (Dell Inspiron 4150) and doesn't have a DVD drive and doesn't have USB in the BIOS as a boot option! So I would happily wipe the whole thing and just have Ubuntu on here, but can't figure out how to do that. There's no data on here anyhow so backing stuff up is not an issue. – user260025 Mar 19 '14 at 21:16
  • Thank you for that! So I guess now we're back to the question of if there's some way to install Ubuntu on this system and wipe Windows completely to which I suspect the answer is no... Can somebody prove me wrong??? – user260025 Mar 20 '14 at 19:31
  • The option to boot from USB drive (flash drive) should pop-up in the BIOS only if you have the drive plugged-into the computer before you boot up and get into the BIOS. – user68186 Mar 20 '14 at 19:31

2 Answers2

0

Use grubcustomizer https://launchpad.net/grub-customizer it has nice user interface. You can edit there boot order.

wair92
  • 482
  • 2
  • 5
  • 19
0

I have an old Dell Inspiron 1000. It, as well as many other older computers, recognize a flash drive as an additional hard drive. That is where it will show up in the BIOS so you should be able to create a bootable flash drive with your desired version of Ubuntu (UNetbootin is my favorite program for creating it). Move the flash drive to the top of the list. If it will boot then you can install from it. Caution though because everything on the computer will be erased when the hard drive is formatted.

Rex
  • 1,645
  • 1
  • 14
  • 16
  • I've had a look in the BIOS and these are my boot options: CD Drive, Internal HDD, Diskette Drive, Modular Bay HDD, Cardbus NIC, APR NIC, Onboard NIC. Which one is the flash drive? Thanks. – user260025 Mar 20 '14 at 19:09
  • @user 260025. On my Dell there is a + sign by the hard drive (Internal HDD). When I hit enter on the hard drive two hard drives are revealed. I just move the second one (which is the flash drive in my case) to the top. I save the changes and exit. It will now boot from the flash drive. – Rex Mar 20 '14 at 19:53