qualms about installing ubuntu

hey guys

my friend showed me his ubuntu set up teh other day and it was freakin sweet..and so i want to install it too. problem is my comp is running vista, and i know you can dual boot. the problem stems from the fact that apparently when u install ubuntu u install something called GRUB (can someone verify this?) that is like a boot option thingy or something.

So say i install ubuntu..mess around with it a few days (i've allocated 15 gigs to it..is that enough?) and than decide i dont want it. How would I go about deleting it and restoring my original vista? By that I mean, erase GRUB, and make things back to the way they were before I installed ubuntu. Is the uninstallation process easy?

I know its weird I'm asking about uninstallation questions when I haven't installed it yet, but I just want to make sure that I can get it off before I put it on (better safe than sorry)

Thanks!

 

As long as you have a proper Vista install disk its not too difficult, just boot off the DVD and choose the repair computer option and choose to fix startup problems, it will then recreate your BCD setup.

If you only have a manufacturers restore CD, its a bit more difficult, you would most likely have to wipe your machine and restore from factory.

15Gb should be more than enough to evaluate Ubuntu, just make sure you point the installer at the right partition, if you only want to test Ubuntu though, you could just run it from the live CD for a while.

 

you could always change the grub timeout to like 1second, and use vista's partition tool to delte that partition you have ubuntu on and extend the vista partition.

im sure there will be someway you could get rid of grub, but i dont konw how.

 

If you just format the ubuntu partition it should not show up grub when you start up your machine. I reinstalled ubuntu a few times on my main desktop (specs below) and the default ATI driver wasn't working right for my video card. So I just formatted it and just used it on my laptop rather then putting up with the horrible ATI drivers they had for linux at the time.

I did get it to work eventually but not to where I could do anything with 3D acceleration.

 

can someone explain to me how to partition correctly so i dont wipe out xp.

or a link would suffice.

thanks.

sorry for hijacking your thread, i just have the same problem with installing pclinuxos 2007