Oh Noes! Linux doesn't have an uninstall option!

Submitted by rich_c on March 14, 2009 - 3:04pm

I just read a blog on another site warning all and sundry that Linux doesn't come with an uninstall option... It was a fairly silly article in my opinion as the obvious way of uninstalling any OS is to overwrite it with it's replacement. I recently overwrote Mepis 7 with Mepis 8 on a couple of PCs with no trouble whatsoever. I could easily have done the same with any other Linux distro or, indeed, a proprietary OS.

Where there is an almost valid point to the complaint regarding a lack of information on 'uninstalling' is if you want to revert a dual boot system to Windows only. If the user elected to replace whatever was in existence on the MBR with GRUB, for example, then as soon as the Linux partition is reformatted the machine will no longer boot. As I see it, there are four ways of either pre-empting or repairing this. These methods are easy to get instructions for by way of Googling... Firstly, you can back up the MBR before you convert to a dual boot system, so that you can restore if you want to at a later date. Secondly, you can use the Windows rescue/installation disk to fix the MBR. Last two, you could use something like EasyBCD to either replace GRUB prior to removing the Linux partition, or use it to amend the existing boot loader when you set up the dual boot system in the first place instead of using GRUB..

I have mentioned in the past that I find it amusing that users wishing to revert to Windows only often ask for guidance on how to do this on Linux forums. I guess Windows forums aren't as accomodating or helpful as the Linux community... I suppose it would be a good idea, from a goodwill point of view, to start providing some sort of backout plans with any documentation regarding setting up a dual boot system... However, it's not as impossible as the article I referred to earlier made it sound.

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