Unfortunately, even though the latest version of Ubuntu is so much easier to use compared to earlier versions, most non-geeky computer users still find it a little bit intimidating. Many common daily computer tasks like downloading and installing applications often require users to deal with command lines. Maybe that’s why many Windows users that I know feel uncomfortable using Ubuntu and have decided to ditch it.

Uninstall Ubuntu?

The problem is, uninstalling Ubuntu is not as simple as installing it. Those who install Ubuntu from within a Windows environment using the WUBI installer are very lucky, because they can then easily uninstall it using the WUBI uninstaller – also from the Windows environment. The uninstaller is usually located inside the Ubuntu folder in drive C (the main hard drive).

But those who install Ubuntu alongside Windows (in a separate partition) are not that lucky. Making mistakes during the uninstallation process could render the whole system useless, and reviving the system from the dead is even more difficult. I’ve searched the web to find the easiest and safest way to uninstall Ubuntu under these circumstances, but everything that I found involves a heavy dose of command lines.

But at least I got something out of my search. I began to understand that there are at least two main obstacles that we have to overcome to be able to safely remove Ubuntu. The first is finding the location of the installation before we can remove it.

The second obstacle is restoring the boot loader so that the computer will boot directly into Windows after we remove Ubuntu.

As Easy As BCD

Let’s start from the second problem as I think this is the most important one. During the installation, Ubuntu will replace your computer’s bootloader with Linux’s GRUB. But when you delete Ubuntu, the boot reference is not restored to the original. This will cause your system to be unable to boot.

To prevent this problem from happening, we will use the help of a free utility called EasyBCD from NeoSmart Technologies. This tool will help users modify and manage their computer’s bootloader. We will use EasyBCD to overwrite GRUB so the computer will boot directly to Windows again.

• Open EasyBCD and click the “Add New Entry” button in the sidebar. Select the Windows tab under the “Operating Systems” tab, choose your Windows version and the drive where it’s installed, then click “Add Entry“.

• Then go to “Bootloader Setup“, choose the partition that you want to boot from and click “Install BCD“. Continue by choosing your version of Windows under “MBR Configuration Options” and click “Write MBR“.

• Try to boot your system just to make sure that it’s going directly to Windows without any interference from GRUB. If everything is OK, let’s continue to the next step.

Playing With The Partition

The second tool that we are going to use is EASEUS Partition Master. We will use the tool to remove the Ubuntu installation. If you install Ubuntu alongside Windows, Ubuntu will create its own partition in your hard drive and install itself there. To remove Ubuntu, all we have to do is to delete its partition. Then we can reclaim the free space back.

• Open the app and you will see all the available partitions. Your Windows partition should be labeled FAT or NTFS, and Ubuntu’s partition is described as “(Other)“. Deleting the partition is as simple as selecting it and clicking the “Delete” button.

• Click “OK” to confirm the deletion and continue to delete other partitions that you don’t need. Be careful not to delete your Windows partition (or your data storage)!

• All the deleted partitions will be labeled “Unallocated“. To claim the free space, slide the edge of your main partition to replace the unallocated space.

• Click the “Apply” button and restart your system to apply all the changes that you’ve made.

• The process will take place during the booting. After it’s finished, your system will boot to Windows.

Congratulations! You’ve just safely removed your Ubuntu installation without touching a single command line.

Please note that if you have important data inside your Ubuntu installation, you should back up your data first before removing everything.

Have you ever tried to remove your Ubuntu installation? Do you know other easy methods to do it? Please share using the comments below.

As useful as it is, the GRUB boot loader is not the prettiest girl in town. The interface is only as beautiful as a text-based interface can be. Even though some people can live with it just fine, some others wish they could beautify the look a little bit.

If you don’t mind meddling with command lines, you can apply some eye candy (and more functionalities) to GRUB with the help of BURG.

Playing Between The Lines

According to the explanation in the Community Ubuntu Documentation:

BURG stands for Brand-new Universal loadeR from GRUB. It’s based on GRUB and adds features like new object format and configurable menu system.

To add BURG from within your Ubuntu installation, you have to use command lines. But worry not, young Jedi! It’s not as scary as it sounds. As long as you follow everything to the letter – no pun intended – you should be just fine.

But before we begin, let’s look at the original boot loader text-based interface that we are trying to change.

The first step you should do is to log into your Ubuntu installation. Then open “Terminal” to execute all the command lines needed to download, install, and configure BURG. You can find Terminal inside “Applications – Accessories“, or you can also use the search function to find it.

By default, BURG is not included in Ubuntu’s standard repository. So you should add the server that hosts BURG files to the repository by executing this command line:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:bean123ch/burg

To avoid mistyping, it’s easier to copy and paste that line to Terminal, and press Enter to execute it.

Then you should download and install BURG (loader, themes and emulator). Use this command to do that:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install burg

The process could take a while, depending on the speed of your internet connection. It’s essential that you use a stable connection to get the best result. From my experiments, I found out that an unstable connection will cause download problems: some of the components might not download completely, and the installation process will fail.

Configuring BURG

After we finish the download and installation process, the next step is to configure BURG. The Terminal will display something like this:

Press Enter to go to the next screen, and another Enter to skip again.

You will arrive at this “Configuring burg-pc” screen. This one is a little tricky because hitting Enter will not bring you anywhere. After several trial and errors, I found out that you have to select the “OK” option by using the right arrow key on the keyboard or by pressing tab, then after the “OK” is selected, you can press Enter to continue.

The following screen will ask you to choose which device is the “GRUB install device“. If your computer has only one hard drive, you will only see one device. The problem is, how to select it? To avoid accidentally skipping this configuration, press Space to select the device before pressing Enter.

Navigating BURG

The configuration is now done. You can restart your system and the GRUB boot loader menu will be replaced by BURG.

Navigating within BURG is easy: use the arrow keys on the keyboard to choose the operating system and Enter to load it.

You can also switch between themes easily by pressing F2 to bring up the list of available themes, move between the items with arrow keys, and hit Enter to choose one. Here are some examples of available themes.

Other Function keys that you can use are F1 for Help and F3 to change screen resolution.

Installing BURG From Windows

BURG also comes with a Windows installer. You can get the installer from BURG’s download page. Using it is also very easy: install it,

And click “Add Boot Entry” under “Programs – Burg” menu.

However, I found this method to be working only if you installed Ubuntu from within Windows. So for those who installed Ubuntu alongside Windows, you have to stick with the command lines.

To be honest, I’m a total newbie when it comes to Ubuntu (Linux) and command lines. I had to repeat the experiment several times just to get it (almost) right, and I’m still trying to grasp everything that I’ve done and described here. So, if you Linux experts out there have found things that I missed here, please do not hesitate to share your input in the comments below.

I’ve written all about this amazing OS, discussing everything from how awesome Ubuntu 10.04 is to 7 things easier to do in Ubuntu than in Windows.

But perhaps the best part about Ubuntu, not to mention Linux in general, is how it can be installed on most any machine you run into. If you’re looking to install Ubuntu under unusual circumstances you’ve found the right article: we’re going to run through 5 weird and alternative Ubuntu installs.

If this isn’t what you’re looking for, keep reading anyway. What could it hurt?

Installing From USB

It’s 2010; optical drives are all but dead. If you’ve got a computer without an optical drive, be it a netbook or simply a desktop with a broken drive, don’t panic: you can install Ubuntu from your USB drive.

The best tool for the job, of course, is UNetBootin. This tool is capable of writing a wide variety of Linux Live CDs to your USB key or external hard drive. Boot from your USB key and you should be good to go, installing Ubuntu the same way you do from a computer.

Want to learn more about using UNetBootin? Check out Blake’s article How To Install Linux With Ease with UNetBootin.

Trying to create a bootable disk from your Mac? UNetBootin won’t work, but Jeffry’s article How To Create A Portable Ubuntu Installation USB On The Mac has you covered (but if you have access to a Windows or Linux computer that’s the simplest way to go).

Installing From Within Windows

Many Ubuntu zealots will tell you that the ideal Ubuntu situation is quit Windows entirely, but that’s not completely necessary: Windows and Ubuntu can co-exist quite peacefully.

In fact, if you want, you can install Ubuntu directly from inside Wubi. If you have an Ubuntu CD go ahead and insert it in Windows; you’ll be asked if you want to install Ubuntu. This is possible because of a program called Wubi.

Don’t have a Ubuntu CD? That’s okay, you can download Wubi from the web. It will automatically download Ubuntu and install it for you. Best of all, if you decide you don’t like Ubuntu you can remove it from within Windows the way you would any piece of Windows software.

Read all about the wonders of Wubi in Tim’s article How to Set Up a Dual Boot Windows & Linux System with Wubi.

On A Mac

Mac users are often hesitant about installing Ubuntu on their system. This is understandable; Mac’s own Boot Camp software doesn’t officially support Linux and many of the guides for doing so around the Internet are really complicated.

To a certain extent there’s no getting around this: this is going to be complicated. Ubuntu’s got an excellent set of documentation, however, which will give you an idea of what’s involved. All methods described there are based on rEFit, an alternative boot loader for Macs that’s far more Linux friendly than BootCamp. If you want an in-depth look at rEFit from us here at MakeUseOf be patient – I plan on writing it up just as soon as I get my hands on a Mac (though my Mac friends are quite careful to keep this from happening, so it may be a while”¦)

Install To USB Disk

Having your USB disk function as a LiveCD is cool, but if you want a portable version of Ubuntu that you can customize however you like and use on any computer don’t worry: there are a variety of tools for the job. You could use Portable Linux for the job, or LiveUSBCreator.

Alternatively, you could just boot the Ubuntu installation CD and install to your thumb drive instead of to a regular drive. For more information check out this article over at wiki.ubuntu.com.

Install Using VMWare

As it turns out, you can make use of VMWare to install Ubuntu onto any drive. Here’s how it works: create a new virtual machine, but instead of creating a virtual disk tell VMWare to write the operating system directly to a physical drive. This can be a secondary drive in your computer or a USB thumb drive, it doesn’t matter; what does matter is the result. You’ll have Ubuntu installed on the external drive of your choice.

This could be a solution if you need to install Ubuntu onto a computer with no optical drive and no working USB port, provided you have an extra computer. Simply remove the hard drive from that computer and connect it to another computer with a USB to IDE connector, or by opening your other computer and connecting it internally. Then fire up VMware and install Ubuntu to the drive with it.

Of course, your mileage may vary. Check out the write-up over at help.ubuntu.com for more information.

Upgrading From The Previous Version

If you’re using Ubuntu 9.10 and want to switch to the sleek Ubuntu 10.04, don’t worry: Ubuntu has you covered. Just fire up your update utility and you’ll see the following:

Click this and your upgrade will start. Just know that you should probably back up your data before doing so. It’s also worth noting that this process can take a long time – it involves downloading and installing about 700 MB worth of packages – so make sure you won’t need your computer for at least a few hours beforehand.

Find more information about upgrading Ubuntu over at Ubuntu’s website.

Conclusion

There you have it: a series of unique ways to install Ubuntu. I realize many of these methods could work with just about any version of Linux, so feel free to apply them as you see fit.

There are more methods out there, that’s for sure. If none of these fits your unusual situation I highly recommend you check out the many scenarios laid out and see what you can find.

Have any other alternative Ubuntu install methods you particularly like? Let me know about them in the comments below, and link to documentation if you want. Also feel free to point out any details I may have missed in describing these methods.

Finally, because I know at least one of you will, feel free to tell me that Linux Mint is superior to Ubuntu despite the fact that Mint is mostly just Ubuntu with a few cool tweaks (but know that I will ignore you).

What most people don’t know, however, is that this same program allows you to seamlessly combine your native and guest operating systems, allowing you to work with windows from both systems side-by-side. Heck, you can even copy and past text between any two platforms. Combine OSX and Windows, or Windows and Ubuntu, or Ubuntu and Fedora: the possibilities are endless.

Installing Two Operating Systems With VirtualBox

If you’ve never used VirtualBox before, or any sort of virtualization software at all, some preliminary reading may be in order. If you want to create a virtual Windows environment, check out Jorge’s article on installing Windows 7 on a virtual machine in Virtualbox. These instructions are quite specific to Windows 7, but can be easily applied to any version of Windows. Alternatively, you could make a VirtualBox-ready clone of your existing Windows operating system, courtesy of an article by Varun.

If testing various Linux distributions is more your thing, Jorge also has you covered: he wrote all about test driving Linux operating systems with VirtualBox. This is actually a great deal simpler than running Windows, as you can download pre-built packages.

Want a virtual OSX? I’m sorry to say that Apple’s licensing forbids this, though if OSX is your native platform you can easily install VirtualBox to test other operating systems.

It’s also possible, in theory, that some legally-questionable BitTorrent trackers have VirtualBox images you can use to boot OSX. But these are illegal, and VirtualBox’s seamless mode won’t work with these anyway. Don’t check them out, and don’t share links to them in the comments below.

Installing Guest Additions

So you’ve got your guest operating system of choice up and running, but notice that it’s anything but seamless at this point? It’s time to install the Guest Additions. These operating system tweaks make it possible to move your mouse from the guest OS to your native OS without missing a beat.

Installing these additions is simple: on the window of the VirtualBox instance containing you Guest OS click “Devices,” followed by “Install Guest Additions.” Then follow the on-screen instructions within your Guest OS to complete the installation.

For those running a guest Linux Operating System: if you downloaded a pre-built VirtualBox image, it’s likely you already have the Guest Additions installed. If you suspect this isn’t the case, however, the above method should work wonderfully for you as well.

Seamless Mode!

Now that you’ve got the Guest Additions up and running it’s time for the real fun: trying out seamless mode. Click “Machine,” then “Seamless Mode.”

After you do this your host operating system and your virtual operating system should seem to combine. You’ll have a taskbar from each and programs from each will be visible over your native operating system’s desktop. If this hasn’t worked, try pressing “Seamless Mode” again – this will usually do the trick.

As you can see above, this is a great way to play Ubuntu and Window’s versions of solitaire at the same time. If you’re looking for more practical ideas, however there are a few. Using Ubuntu’s version of Firefox is a great way to ensure your native Windows system is completely secure. If you’re a Linux user, seamless mode is a great way to use your Windows-only applications whilst still feeling at home within Ubuntu.

Any application supported by your guest OS can be installed on a virtual machine, provided you’ve allowed for enough hard drive space to support them all.

Conclusion

Seamless mode is a slick, underexplored feature of VirtualBox. It’s fit into my workflow on a regular basis, and can work wonders for anyone who needs to run two systems at once for any reason.

What do you guys think? Is this a cool and useful feature, or merely a gimmick? Do you have any advice for using it and getting it all set up? Can you think of any specific use you’d have for this functionality? Let us know in the comments below!

Today I’ll show you how to set up a “dual boot” system that includes Linux (specifically Ubuntu Linux) alongside Windows XP or Vista. There will be no hard-drive partitioning (that’s scary!), instead Ubuntu will be installed in this case as if it were any other Windows program. This also makes it easy to uninstall later, in case you don’t like it.

Why would someone want to do this? Maybe you’re just beginning to really learn it, like I am. Maybe you’re a gamer who is just not a fan of the Windows interface and would like an alternative. Maybe you’re the power-user type and just wants to see what the fuss is about. Any reason you may have is valid. I’m just a big fan of free software who wants to help spread the word.

To get started, there’s no need to go to the Ubuntu site and download or order a CD-ROM. In this example, all you will need is to download and run the Wubi installer. Wubi started as an independent project, but is now officially supported by the Ubuntu community as a method of installation.

On the first screen, you’ll provide your desired username and password as well as designate the size of your “virtual disk” file, which your PC will see as a Linux file system.

Depending on the speed of your Internet connection, this next part may take a while. Wubi will download an image of the Ubuntu installation CD. As long as you’re on a broadband connection, this shouldn’t take more than an hour or two; Feel free to ignore the approximate download time at the onset.

After a few more installation screens, you’ll be prompted to reboot your system. Doing so should bring you to a new screen, giving you a choice whether you want to boot into Windows or Ubuntu. Select Ubuntu anytime to finish the installation.

Don’t panic when you see the formatting-partitions screen; Only the virtual disk file on which Ubuntu sits is being formatted.

After another reboot, enter your username and password and gaze upon a fresh pristine Linux desktop. It takes a little bit of getting-used-to, but the learning curve isn’t that steep.

Feel free to glance over the documentation to get your feet wet, check out our many articles on Linux use, and join the forums if you have any questions. Don’t be afraid of asking something “stupid”.  We were all n00bs once. Well, except me. I’m still a Linux n00b. But hey that’s what I’m taking out student loans for.

My choice of Ubuntu may have upset some Linux fans. Feel free to let me have it, and tell us why your favorite distribution is better, in the comments.