If you break your Ubuntu system and try many ways to fix it, you finally give up and take the easy way out: reinstall Ubuntu.
We’ve been in situations where reinstalling Linux seems better than figuring out the problem and fixing it. Troubleshooting Linux can teach you a lot, but you won’t always spend more time fixing broken systems.
As far as I know, Ubuntu doesn’t have a system recovery partition like Windows. So, the question arises: How do I reinstall Ubuntu? Let me show you how to reinstall Ubuntu.
Warning!
Disk partitioning is always a dangerous task. I strongly recommend backing up your data on an external disk.
How do I reinstall Ubuntu Linux
Here are the steps to re-install Ubuntu.
Step 1: Create a Live USB
First, download Ubuntu from the website. You can download any Ubuntu version you want.
- Download the Ubuntu
Once you have the ISO image, you can create a Live USB. If the Ubuntu system is still available, you can create it using the boot disk creation tool provided by Ubuntu.
If you can’t use Ubuntu, you can use another system. You can refer to this article to learn how to create Ubuntu live USB in Windows.
Step 2: Reinstall Ubuntu
Once you have Ubuntu’s Live USB, plug it into the USB port. Restart the system. On startup, press a key like F2/F10/F12 to go to BIOS Settings and make sure Boot from Removable Devices/USB is set. Save the Settings and exit the BIOS. This will boot into Live USB.
After entering Live USB, choose To install Ubuntu. You’ll see common options for selecting language and keyboard layout. You can also choose to download updates and so on.
Now the important step. You should see an “Installation Type” page. What you see on the screen depends a lot on how Ubuntu handles the disk partitions on your system and the operating system installed.
Read the options and their details carefully in this step. Note the description of each option. The options on the screen may look different on different systems.
Here it found Ubuntu 18.04.2 and Windows installed on my system, and it gave me some options.
The first option is to erase Ubuntu 18.04.2 and reinstall it. It told me it would delete my personal data, but it didn’t say delete all operating systems (i.e., Windows).
If you are very lucky or in single-boot mode, you may see an option to “Reinstall Ubuntu Install Ubuntu”. This option will preserve existing data and even try to preserve installed software. If you see this option, use it.
Dual boot system note
If you are dual-booting Ubuntu and Windows, and Windows is not visible on your Ubuntu system during a reinstallation, you must select the “Something else” option and install Ubuntu from there. I have been in theThe process of installing Linux under dual bootIn this article.
There was no option for me to reinstall and retain data, so I chose “Erase Ubuntu and Reinstall”. This option will re-install Ubuntu even in Windows dual boot mode.
I recommend using separate partitions for/and /home just for reinstallation. This way, data in the /home partition can be kept safe even if Linux is reinstalled. I’ve demonstrated this in this video:
After choosing to reinstall Ubuntu, all that remains is to click Next. Select your location and create a user account.
Once that’s done, you’re done reinstalling Ubuntu.
In this tutorial, I’m assuming you already know what I’m talking about, because you’ve installed Ubuntu before. If you need clarification on any of these steps, feel free to ask in the comments section.
Via: itsfoss.com/reinstall-u…
By Abhishek Prakash (Lujun9972
This article is originally compiled by LCTT and released in Linux China