I've had a bit of a nightmare with my Fedora installation and I think it's easier to just start fresh with a new distro. I'm leaning towards Ubuntu since Fedora didn't quite work out for me. I'm also running Windows 11 on a different hard drive, so I'm not too worried about my important files.
Here's the deal, though: My Fedora install is on the same drive as an EFI partition set up for grub, which still functions (except for booting Fedora). I want to make sure I handle grub correctly when I reinstall.
I've thought about three options:
1) Remove Fedora through Windows by deleting its entry in the EFI partition. This option feels a bit hacky since it's not native to grub.
2) Remove Fedora while in "Try Ubuntu" mode before installing Ubuntu. Is there a way to automatically add Ubuntu to grub during this install, and are there any pitfalls I should be aware of?
3) Just go ahead and install Ubuntu like normal, then clean up the grub menu afterward. This might leave some invalid entries, but as long as I don't try booting Fedora, I think it should be fine.
I'm particularly curious whether the Ubuntu installer will recognize the existing EFI partition and if it'll keep it intact while partitioning. Is there anything I should be extra cautious about when switching from Arch-based systems to Debian? I'm leaning toward option 3 but would appreciate insights from anyone who's been through this before!
1 Answer
The easiest way to handle this is to delete the /EFI/fedora directory and its menu entry from your UEFI boot menu. Then, when you install Ubuntu, it’ll automatically set up its grub entry, no matter what order you do this in!
Thanks for that tip! I’m aware of removing /EFI/fedora, but I'm curious about the UEFI menu entry - is it the same as the process in this link? I've seen some people running into boot loops after deletion, so just want to be super careful. By the way, does Ubuntu automatically set up its boot entry during the install?