LTS 14.04: How do I get rid of GRUB?

[joshuapk]

Hello!

I have a somewhat complex boot setup: several different kernels for CentOS 7, one entry for Ubuntu 14.04, and Windows 7. This is all managed by the Grub bootloader from my CentOS install. Every time I update Ubuntu, Ubuntu decides that it wants to take control of my boot setup, so it whacks my CentOS bootloader. I do not want it to do this.

I thought it would be as easy as using Apt to get rid of the Grub packages:

apt-get remove grub-common grub-gfxpayload-lists grub-pc grub-pc-bin grub2-common

However, I noticed that when I do this, it also wants to get rid of a number of other needed packages, namely multisystem and ubuntu-desktop. (Why the desktop is dependent upon a bootloader is beyond me!) Also, it will proceed to install upgraded EFI Boot Manager and Grub packages!


The following packages will be REMOVED:
gettext gettext-base grub-common grub-gfxpayload-lists grub-pc grub-pc-bin
grub2-common im-config intltool-debian language-selector-gnome lintian
multisystem os-prober pppoeconf ubuntu-desktop
The following NEW packages will be installed:
efibootmgr gcc-4.8-base:i386 gcc-4.9-base:i386 gettext-base:i386
grub-common:i386 grub-efi-amd64 grub-efi-amd64-bin grub2-common:i386
libasprintf0c2:i386 libc6:i386 libcgmanager0:i386 libdbus-1-3:i386
libdevmapper1.02.1:i386 libfreetype6:i386 libfuse2:i386 libgcc1:i386
liblzma5:i386 libnih-dbus1:i386 libnih1:i386 libpcre3:i386 libpng12-0:i386
libselinux1:i386 libstdc++6:i386 libudev1:i386 os-prober:i386 zlib1g:i386

How can I completely remove Ubuntu Grub, EFI Boot Manager, and all other booting stuff from my Ubuntu install?

[Dennis N]

You do have a BIOS system, right? What you can do is hold the grub packages so that they don't upgrade and install a newer version of grub to the MBR and change the booting to Ubuntu. The Ubuntu grub is not being used anyway, so no need to upgrade it. The terminal command to do this is apt-mark hold <package names>


sudo apt-mark hold grub-common grub-gfxpayload-lists grub-pc grub-pc-bin grub2-common

(A kernel update for Ubuntu is ok, since it does not install grub, it only updates grub.cfg.)

[Bashing-om]

joshuapk; Hello .

ninja'd by Dennis ,



fast on the draw