Score:0

Blank screen with no grub menu

ru flag

I tried to customize Ubuntu and broke my installation. I tried reinstalling Ubuntu without a USB or DVD by using grml-rescueboot to boot to a live environment. The installer failed. I suspect it failed because it couldn't create a partition. Now my computer boots to a black screen. I can't even get to the GRUB menu.

The partition table:

/dev/sda1 - efi - 533mb

/dev/sda2 - / - 245gb

/dev/sda3 - /home - 250gb

I guess I should have formatted the EFI partition as well. I guess Ubuntu auto creates this. Also I didn't add swap partition which should not be a problem because my old Ubuntu didn't have one either.

Nmath avatar
ng flag
Obtain or borrow a USB and perform a clean installation from up-to-date bootable installation media. Your current path won't achieve a successful result. You're right, you do not need a swap partition. And yes, the guided installation will create an appropriately sized EFI if needed. I suggest that you format (erase) the whole disk and use the guided installation. You don't need a home partition either. Having a separate home didn't help in this case and probably won't help if you have the same problem in the future with broken/invalid customizations since most configs will be stored there.
Game-Dev avatar
ru flag
Thanks for your reply. And after a lil bit of searching everything I found required at least a terminal for which I'll require a usb so I'll now get a usb and do a fresh install. also I created a seperate partition for home coz as far as I know home directory stores all your data and you can share it between distros So as I was thinking of dual-booting arch with ubuntu, I created a home partition for connecting it to arch as well when I install it.
Nmath avatar
ng flag
*"you can share it between distros"* - not really, at least not anymore, and not without really knowing what you're doing. This used to be more true, but software diversity has exploded and lots of software stores configs in home in different and conflicting ways. You're much more likely to break both systems by sharing a home folder, especially if you're going to share between Ubuntu and Arch which are very different. Unless you are very adept at solving problems in both operating systems it's better to keep them apart. You can back up or transfer configs manually
Nmath avatar
ng flag
Sharing a data partition should be no problem, but there's a lot of dotfiles and configuration files under home and sometimes it only takes one conflicting line in one file to crash a whole system
guiverc avatar
cn flag
Where two OSes share the $HOME folder be very aware of the pitfalls. If the software gets out of sync between the OSes, ie. one can write files in a way the other cannot understand; which can mean negative consequences. Example: My chosen MUA (GNOME's then default) upgraded on one & I loved a new feature it had, alas any email where that feature was used became invisible when the older software was used; ie. one OS no longer saw mail in my inbox because I'd started using a newer feature that changed things in mail store. You'll need to check this for apps you use & every update that occurs
guiverc avatar
cn flag
You've provided no release details; but if you're using the most *up-to-date* Ubuntu (currently *jammy*), which will be closest to arch for example; you'll be off-topic here too; using older on-topic released systems will mean more risk of problems given Arch's nature...
Game-Dev avatar
ru flag
Well I just decided onto keeping my common data and dot files in the second partition. and copy the configs to the other system if I ever change them, as that would be the easiest and least error prone. I'm on ubuntu 20.04 btw.
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