Is there a way to install Ubuntu without formattting the drive?

[3rdalbum]

This all may be pointless. Just install unity from the repos and leave it as mint.

Easier said than done, I'm afraid. I tried to install Unity on Mint and it just wouldn't appear at the login screen.

I don't know whether it's just a bug or if the Mint developers have broken it out of spite. I tried to get help from the Mint community but they were less than helpful; it seems the only reason they were using Mint is because it didn't come with Unity.

This was back in the 13.04 days so it's possible things have changed since.

[xeddog]

Well, I talked myself into not being a cry baby about all of this so I backed up everything I needed to backup and just did an install of Ubuntu 14.04.1 using the installation option to replace Mint. That left me with a relatively "clean" Ubuntu installation, but of course all the applications and other stuff was gone. With good backups, though, the machine was running again in about 4 or 5 hours. But to address a few of the comments made -

I thought about just installing Unity itself, but I did a little reading on the Internet and as 3rdalbum mentioned, it doesn't seem like it is as easy as installing a few packages and the resultant Unity is still missing a few features. It probably would have been "good enough" though. As for re-installing using the "something else" option, in hindsight I should have done that if for no other reason than to do it and learn something new. Now if it comes up again I won't have any experience to draw on and it might be a much more important machine. Shoulda, coulda . . . But since the applications that I am mainly interested in are installed into my home directory, it was easy to back them up too, and then just copy them back to the "new" Ubuntu. As for the data, all I can say is CRAP! I had two backup copies of my mysql database, and neither of them would restore. Fortunately this was just for me and not a production system so while I hate losing it, it is small potatoes. If I really wanted to I could take the time to re-create it (probably a few weeks) but it really isn't worth all them time to do so.

At any rate, if a situation like this comes up again (if??? or when!!!) I will remember this.


Thanks to all,

Wayne