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I bought a Windows 10 PC with 1TB HD originaly partitioned like this:

260.0 MB - MBR
885.9 GB - NTFS - Windows C:
25.0  GB - NTFS - Lenovo D:
1000  MB - Recovery partition
18.4  GB - Recovery partition
1000  MB - OEM partition

I had to install Linux to run a specific application, but the support was not sure if it would run in any distro, and suggested to try Ubuntu and Fedora. I cut the C: partition in 3 pieces: 500 GB for Windows, 180+something for each Linux flavor and installed both.

Now I decided to keep Ubuntu, erase Fedora and turn it's area into a neutral region accessible via Windows and Linux. The current partitioning of my HD is now as follows:

[original]  260.0 MB - MBR
[original]  500.0 GB - NTFS - Windows C:
[Linux]     1.0   GB - Linux filesystem
[Linux]     187.9 GB - Linux LVM
[Linux]     189.1 GB - Linux filesystem (Ubuntu)
[Linux]     7.9   GB - Linux swap
[original]  25.0  GB - NTFS - Lenovo D:
[original]  1000  MB - Recovery partition
[original]  18.4  GB - Recovery partition
[original]  1000  MB - OEM partition

The question is: which of the four [Linux] items I can get rid of without damaging Ubuntu ?

Alexandre Meyer
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  • You need to first make sure the grub in MBR is Ubuntu's grub not Fedora's grub. If Ubuntu first in list then it should be. Fedora default install uses LVM, so the partition showing it contains the LVM is the Fedora install. – oldfred Jun 16 '17 at 15:47
  • Given its size, it looks like what's reported as "MBR" in the above output is actually an EFI System Partition (ESP). The acronym "MBR" more commonly refers to the Master Boot Record, which is a single sector at the start of the disk. On an EFI-based computer, multiple boot loaders can be stored simultaneously and managed via the efibootmgr tool. See this question for some basics on using efibootmgr. – Rod Smith Jun 17 '17 at 02:48
  • @oldfred, thank you for your comment. Yes, I've checked and I'm pretty sure it's Ubuntu's Grub. – Alexandre Meyer Jun 27 '17 at 18:45
  • Always best to have a repair or live installer that can be used for repairs of the current installed version of every operating system you have installed. I also like to have several other repair ISO to use if needed. And of course good backups as "stuff" happens, even to those of us who may think we know what we are doing. – oldfred Jun 27 '17 at 21:24

2 Answers2

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As far as I can see, after removing Fedora partitions nothing will happen to Ubuntu or windows.

First login into your Ubuntu, find the correct partitions and remove them using a utility like fdisk of gparted.

Then run sudo update-grub to get rid of Fedora menu entries in GRUB, you can run sudo grub-install /dev/sda to make sure MBR still lives on boot sector (just in case).

Ravexina
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The information you've provided doesn't make this 100% clear. (I could infer, and I'd very likely get it right, but there's a chance I'd get it wrong.) Rather than rely on my (or somebody else's) guess, I suggest you look at one or both of two other sources of information:

  • In each OS, type df to see a list of partitions and where they're mounted.
  • Examine the /etc/fstab file, which is where filesystem mount point information and swap space definitions are stored. See this Ubuntu documentation page for more on interpreting the /etc/fstab contents.

The information you can obtain in these two ways overlaps, but each method has its advantages. For instance, df shows what's currently mounted, which could be more or less partitions than are defined in /etc/fstab, if you've mounted or unmounted partitions since booting, or if something has auto-mounted partitions that aren't defined in /etc/fstab. (This usually happens when you insert a removable disk, for instance.)

Note also that most distributions, including Ubuntu, don't refer to partitions by device IDs in /etc/fstab; instead, they use UUID numbers. You can determine which partitions have which UUIDs by using blkid. Typing sudo blkid will show information on all your partitions. You'll then have to match that to the /etc/fstab entries to figure out which partition is which.

Another point is that you appear to have a Logical Volume Manager (LVM) setup on one partition. This is used in Fedora by default, so that's probably Fedora's partition. LVM partitions aren't mounted directly, though; they're containers for logical volumes (LVs), which in turn are referred to by files in /dev/mapper or /dev/{vgname}, where {vgname} is a volume group name. In some cases, they may show up as being /dev/dm-#, where # is a number. This can be confusing if you don't understand LVM, but LVM has significant advantages over conventional partition management.

Rod Smith
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