How many times have you reinstalled Ubuntu [Archive]

Sunflower1970

June 1st, 2007, 03:35 PM

Oh, my. When I first started, since I wasn't too sure how to fix problems, I'd just end up reinstalling. It was easier. Now I can fix most of the problems, so I don't have to reinstall any more.

Maybe around 12-15 times in the first month or so of using Ubuntu? Each time I reinstalled, though, I learned something new, though, so I find those experiences were very useful. I'd also write down all the little tips/tricks so the next time I ran into a problem, I could fix it instead of reinstalling. :)

viciouslime

June 1st, 2007, 03:36 PM

I have been wondering how many times have other people had to reinstall Ubuntu.

Countless, but it's not so much a case of had to, but as wanted to. I like to experiment with it and this often results in breakage, however, unlike windows, re-installation is a breeze. I have a separate /home partition so it takes me 14mins at my last count to pop the disc in, press next next next and that's that everything back exactly how it was.

Sometimes I will fix it manually since there is more to be learnt that way, but if I haven't the time, I know I can always reinstall :D

jonward0690

June 1st, 2007, 03:52 PM

Countless, but it's not so much a case of had to, but as wanted to. I like to experiment with it and this often results in breakage, however, unlike windows, re-installation is a breeze. I have a separate /home partition so it takes me 14mins at my last count to pop the disc in, press next next next and that's that everything back exactly how it was.

Sometimes I will fix it manually since there is more to be learnt that way, but if I haven't the time, I know I can always reinstall :D

Yea that is how it is for me it takes 15 minutes to reinstall Ubuntu I have done it countless times I can actually reinstall Windows and Ubuntu and Have the system back like it was in three hours.

starcraft.man

June 1st, 2007, 03:52 PM

Uh, a small handful, less than 6 I believe. On a related note, that number will likely never exceed the number of installs/reinstalls I did of XP alone.... *grumbles*.

This should prolly be in the cafe too...

Patrick K

June 1st, 2007, 04:00 PM

7 or 8 times. All since December. I never once reinstalled W98 since I installed it in June 1998. I've moved it to 3 or 4 different drives and have change motherboards a few times (the case and floppy are the only remaining components of that original computer). No XP for me.

Cypher

June 1st, 2007, 04:01 PM

Installed : 1
Re-installed : 0

:D
QFT

drowner

June 1st, 2007, 04:03 PM

I have reinstalled once, today

But that was my fault.

I went to repartition my NTFS drive using the gParted live CD (i wanted to shrink the windows partition, preferably get rid of it), gparted had some issues with my video card, it looked funny, it took forever (? i didnt defrag enough?) and then when i went away and came back, the screen was flickering, i couldnt see anything, so i hard-rebooted.

Then i got a grub error 2

Then i reinstalled, using the entire disk :D

daxumaming

June 1st, 2007, 04:05 PM

I only reinstalled thrice on my current system. The first time when I have XP, 2000, ME, Damn Small, Puppy, Fedora, and SuSe. The second time, when I deleted all my other OS and installed Kubuntu Dapper. And lastly, when I have to give my Fiesty a partition for /var. Now, when I have to install another distro, I just use QEMU. I've never been happier with my currrent setup and I know I won't uninstall or reinstall Kubuntu ever again.

justin whitaker

June 1st, 2007, 04:10 PM

I don't know. Since Edgy? Probably 8 times. I install Ubuntu, then get ticked off about something, reinstall XP, get ticked off at that, install Kubuntu for a change of pace, get ticked at that (last time, it was an adept failure), go back to Ubuntu....rinse repeat.:p

phr0ze

June 1st, 2007, 04:14 PM

I'm a newb and I've never had to reinstall. I have put it on several systems, so I've installed many times. But I've never had to Reinstall it on any system.

Sethalos

June 1st, 2007, 04:17 PM

Re-installed: 3 times

The first two were my own doing, just because I was messing with things and didn't realize what I was doing.

The third because of the new upgrade, it messed up my drive mountings, and I couldn't figure out how to fix it, lol.

So mostly noob reasons.

Now ask my how many times I had to re-install Windows? Actually, I don't think there are numbers that high.

Seth

Chayak

June 1st, 2007, 04:21 PM

I've lost count of how many installs I've done for Ubuntu and other OSs though typically I only have to install Linux once. At work I've found windows 2003R2 to be fairly solid and I've never had a problem with it other than hardware failure. Desktops on the other hand... oy! It's the reason I set up the network to load images if booted off NICs. I could only hope they'll let me deploy Ubuntu desktops one day.

ConsummateK

June 1st, 2007, 04:21 PM

All you guys talking about how much of a breeze it is to reinstall need to drop some knowledge on me.

I'm dual booting Windows and Ubuntu on the same drive.

I installed by creating one big Windows partition and then resizing it and whenever I manage to break something beyond realm of knowledge to fix (Ya know, like anything :p) the process goes...

DBAN
Windows Install
Ubuntu Install (Using resizing method again)

Everytime I have tried to use GParted from the live CD it errors out so I have to resort to the above mentioned method :confused:

But anyways, to answer the question...3 installs so far. :)

Crafty Kisses

June 1st, 2007, 04:24 PM

I have been wondering how many times have other people had to reinstall Ubuntu.

I've probably had to reinstall Ubuntu 12-15 times now. (Kinda new to Ubuntu, It's a freaking SWEET OS)

y-lee

June 1st, 2007, 04:25 PM

I've been using Ubuntu for about 6 months and I have not had to reinstall. It truly impresses me how stable it is and even tho i made a few serious mistakes in the terminal I was able to fix the problem little effort. Tho once it did scare me and i thought i may have to reinstall. haha.

Sethalos

June 1st, 2007, 04:30 PM

Brightbelt

June 1st, 2007, 04:32 PM

6-10 times for me. And it' similar to what others have said. Being a beginner, I did it because I saw no other way to troubleshoot.

Lately, I'm a little better at solving problems. Also, the first issues were usually related to my graphics card and drivers. So when one messes up there,....ouch, blank screen.

And nothing will make a beginner freak out and reinstall more quickly than a blank screen.

Frank B.

ConsummateK

June 1st, 2007, 04:42 PM

Boot from your Windows OS, use Partition Magic and create a Partition large enough for your Linux install.

Install Ubuntu to that partition.

You make it sound so easy :p

What if GRUB is screwed and I can't boot to windows? (Run a fixmbr)

What if Partition Magic doesn't recognize the trashed Ubuntu partitions? (Been my experience so far)

Even then, i'm fuzzy on how to manually setup the partitions for Ubuntu what with Swap, Home, and Main?

Looks like I have some reading to do...

kittyhawk63

June 1st, 2007, 04:49 PM

Well, I think I have everyone beat that has posted so far. I have tried Xubuntu, Kubuntu. Debian, Dapper, Edgy, Feisty Fawn, SAM, PCLinuxOS and a few others. I think I have installed at least 30 to 40 times during these trials since February. SAM found all my hardware and was the only OS that got Beryl working out of the box.
Some installs are due to my errors and not knowing what I was doing as a newbie. Most of the reinstalls were due to having problems with my ATI Radeon 9200SE video card and trying all kinds of fixes to get it to work. It only worked with SAM out of the box. I found using ENVY with Dapper worked fine. However, it doesn't work "for me" with any of the other Ubuntu versions. With Feisty, I found the easiest thing is to change ATI to VESA in xorg.conf. Anyway, this is off subject. Just trying to give a reason for many of the reinstalls.
I've settled onto using Feisty or Dapper. I keep going back and forth between them. They both have features I like.
I messed up my CD-R/RW Rom drive since I started this so my days of experimenting are over for the moment. I would like to give SAM another look. However, I really like Ubuntu. I wish that it only had more drivers for ATI cards. I recognize that this is ATI's problem, not Ubuntu's.
Now, let's see if anyone can beat my 30 to 40 times.
kh

jlambeth1

June 1st, 2007, 04:56 PM

I can't beat you. After trying out several distros, I went back to Ubuntu being my distro of choice and have not had to reinstall it since I put it on when Feisty came out.

kittyhawk63

June 1st, 2007, 05:00 PM

I can't beat you. After trying out several distros, I went back to Ubuntu being my distro of choice and have not had to reinstall it since I put it on when Feisty came out.

Are you using Edgy or Feisty? I see where it says that you are using Edgy. But from what you have written, it seems that you are now using Feisty.
kh

phr0ze

June 1st, 2007, 05:05 PM

Why does everyone mess with partition magic when the existing installer automatically resizes your existing partitions and auto creates the needed linux partitions? It's fast too.

I know some people like to specify particular sizes for Home, swap, etc. But thats not being discussed here.

Josey

June 1st, 2007, 05:10 PM

dapper - twice
edgy - once
feisty - once

aysiu

June 1st, 2007, 05:14 PM

I've probably had to reinstall only one time. I got that weird GDM error where it tries five times and can't log in. I forget the actual error message, but I Googled for days trying to find a solution. No go. So that was a necessary reinstall. I think there may even be a bug report on it (unresolved, of course).

But there have been many times I've reinstalled Ubuntu when I didn't have to--mainly to test out the new installers for new releases and do screenshots.

public_void

June 1st, 2007, 05:26 PM

Reinstalled - never.
Installed - twice.

Have only installed Breezy and Dapper, both went without a hitch.

Compucore

June 1st, 2007, 05:33 PM

Usually if I read in the instructions right usually it's only one install. But if I goofed up on something it is usually 2 installs max.

Compucore

ticopelp

June 1st, 2007, 05:41 PM

Four, mostly due to screwing around with the system until I broke it. It's how I learn new OSes.

guitarmaniac

June 2nd, 2007, 07:40 AM

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY too many times.
Most of the time it was my fault stuffing around with system files trying to compiz and beryl to work when it first came out.
been using ubuntu since Breezy and have done about 5 reinstalls of each release over 2 computers.
I have only reinstalled Feisty about three times now but that was because I tried out ubuntustudio inbetween and found it to be missing some features of default ubuntu and opted to just install all the audio packages and the low latency kernel over the top of a normal ubuntu using the .debs on the CD.

blacksadness

June 2nd, 2007, 07:48 AM

it doesn't matter how many times you reinstall as long as you're keeping your home directory intact i say.. i've reinstalled personally about 4 times since i started using ubuntu the day feisty was released.. before that i used to have gentoo.. i did a reinstall when i felt i've really messed up the system in a way i can't get it back.. so about once a year, though you can't compare the 2 installations as reinstalling ubuntu takes less then 10 min :D

FuturePilot

June 2nd, 2007, 07:56 AM

50. I swear. I beat you all :p

misfitpierce

June 2nd, 2007, 08:04 AM

1 Ubuntu Install... Worked Great - 1 Reinstall after Kubuntu failed for me
1 Kubuntu install... Worked awful for me.
1 Xubuntu install... Love it and sticking with it... 0 Reinstall's! XFCE is perfect....

steven8

June 2nd, 2007, 08:15 AM

I have never done a re-install. I have done installs more than once of Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu and done more than one install on dual boot hdds with pclinuxos, freespire, winxp, gnewsense and not had a problem yet. Since I overwrote my whole hdd several months ago with feisty, I have not had a single issue.

Kingsley

June 2nd, 2007, 08:35 AM

I've probably installed Ubuntu 20+ time in my year of use. It's mainly due to my trying out different distros or just major annoyances with how something is behaving. My dumbest reason for reinstalling Ubuntu would have to be due to the appearance of my fonts. After installing msttcorefonts (without Automatix) all my fonts looked choppy.

PartisanEntity

June 2nd, 2007, 11:05 AM

Three times. I am a relatively new Linux & Ubuntu user and in the beginning I managed to mess up the system 3 times to a point where all I could do was reinstall the system.

Now, some 7 to 8 months later I realise all I had to do at the time was edit the xorg.conf file ;) but then again no pain no gain.

PatrickMay16

June 2nd, 2007, 11:06 AM

I have been wondering how many times have other people had to reinstall Ubuntu.

I installed it 21 months ago, and have not reinstalled it since then. So I haven't needed to reinstall it ever.

mthakur2006

June 2nd, 2007, 12:04 PM

Number of installations so far? 8 lol...

Most were caused by me running wrong commands, screwing around with font settings, etc.

exactly the same ;)

super breadfish

June 2nd, 2007, 12:59 PM

I reinstall with each new version of Ubuntu, but I've only had to reinstall once because of a problem, after I installed the ATI wrongly and couldn't figure out how to fix it.

DalekClock

June 2nd, 2007, 01:54 PM

I've reinstalled it twice. The first time when I installed Fedora and lost my wireless, and the second when I couldn't find some features in Fiesty that I was expecting.

kostkon

June 2nd, 2007, 04:01 PM

Installed: 2
Reinstalled: 0

But why to reinstall it when you can fix it. I mean, I managed 2-3 times to mess things up, but I was able to fix them and the system came back as new!! :-\"

hessiess

June 2nd, 2007, 04:21 PM

only reinstaled once when i was new to ubuntu and grub dident work propaly

shijirou

June 2nd, 2007, 04:41 PM

Installed Ubuntu on 6 machines so far. Reinstalled only once when I messed up the GRUB menu when I tried to edit it for the first time, and at that time I didn't know how to restore it so I reinstalled lol... typical n00b >_<;

kevinrs

June 2nd, 2007, 05:34 PM

At least 4 times. Being a new Linux user I have broken my installation mucking about. The last time.(yesterday) I reformatted the hard drive and got rid of XP for good. I hope not to have to reinstall this installation as I will leave it alone. (Famous last words);)

juxtaposed

June 2nd, 2007, 06:05 PM

Rarely (if ever) do I find reinstalling linux is needed (like it is in windows), but I always want to do anyway sometimes. It's kind of a "I want to start out with a blank slate" thing and make the installation perfect or something :P

LightB

June 2nd, 2007, 06:07 PM

Only once the first time I installed it which was version 5.10. I didn't know what I was doing and I messed it up.

regomodo

June 3rd, 2007, 01:11 PM

a lot. Sometimes because of something i did wrong sometimes the install went wrong, not my fault. i.e the other night it took 3attempts to install xubuntu. Apparantly it didn't format and fsck the hdd properly until i did it manually in acronis

On my PC ~= 15times

Laptop ~= 8times

akudewan

June 3rd, 2007, 01:20 PM

Installed: 1
Reinstalled: 0

:D

ekka

June 3rd, 2007, 01:36 PM

Reinstalled: 1

Spr0k3t

June 3rd, 2007, 01:39 PM

I'm going to isolate this down to my primary computer system. I've done a reinstall only once since coming back to Linux. The first time I wrote a nice large guide for myself detailing every item I install, the correct way things are installed and how I customized everything. It's good information, mostly a cut down version of http://ubuntuguide.org. Once I was able to get everything set to my satisfaction, I did a reinstall with feisty. The reinstall helped me reinforce the knowledge I learned from the first install.

mech7

June 3rd, 2007, 03:04 PM

First few times allot like 5/6 times but now everything has been running good for a while.. still some bugs glitches and what not but no serious problems causing need for a reinstall.

icechen1

June 3rd, 2007, 03:07 PM

reinstalled 1 time because i messed it up.

cantormath

June 3rd, 2007, 03:12 PM

not including an update to new versions.........I dont think I have with ubuntu.

zenwhen

June 3rd, 2007, 04:31 PM

Once for each release.

init1

June 3rd, 2007, 05:31 PM

Four or so times, actually. Of course, that was because of my own ignorance and my lack of partitioning experience. Ubuntu was the first os that I actually partitioned my hard drive for. The most recent time was when I had corrupted my ubuntu partition (my fault, not the os), and decided to install xubuntu.

Concorde

June 3rd, 2007, 05:36 PM

I Installed Ubuntu twice,
When I first installed it, I had it dual-boot alongside Windows XP.
The second time is when I tossed Windows XP out the window can and re-installed Ubuntu.

I had to re-install Windows XP as a virtual machine within Ubuntu. This was due to the fact that I help my family and friends with pc problems and I needed PE-Builder to create some bootable diagnostic cds for their Windows.

AlanRogers

June 3rd, 2007, 05:44 PM

I've reinstalled several times, but it's never truly been Ubuntu's fault. When first playing with it on a old box, I installed the three flavours of Ubuntu, to see which I liked, not knowing that I could 'migrate' from one to another. I also installed, played with and uninstalled tons of software.

I then started playing around with Aptitude over Apt-Get, plus DEB, RPM via Alien, Package, BIN and compiling new software. I wasn't very successful at the last and the combination of all broke the install. The lesson was learned; stick to what's in the Repositories unless you know what you're doing.

Having just receovered all my data from a failed NTFS drive, I reformated it EXT3 and added it to my new box as a slave. I then used Aiysu's instructions (http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/separatehome) to move /home to the new drive. Firefox and GDM were unstable, so I took the opportunity to reinstall, whilst keeping my old data.

Ubuntu can't be blamed and I've learned loads.

locke.dragon

June 3rd, 2007, 08:59 PM

re-installed three times in the two months i've been an ubuntu user. my own stupidity with messing around with settings and partitions did it. :P

RAV TUX

June 3rd, 2007, 09:02 PM

I have been wondering how many times have other people had to reinstall Ubuntu.more then I could count and that was on my old computer.

yabbadabbadont

June 3rd, 2007, 09:09 PM

Somewhere in the "dozens" range.

TheFlamingBush

June 3rd, 2007, 10:06 PM

once!

installed Dapper about a year ago and have been unbelievably impressed!.....everytime i have had a problem, the community and support team have been fantastic in getting answers within minutes sometimes., I have had some problems with connectivity when changing country and isp connections, but that has since been fixed as well.....

Dapper is beautiful, and i have managed to get things working on it that would have cost me a fortune had i stayed with doze........

im a scriptwriter, play write, poet, and sometime philosopher, who also makes films ....... so linux has been unreal!.....Ubuntu surreal!.......... its never crashed, and the only headaches ive had have been solved with communication and patience!

Long live Dapper Ubuntu....in a way im glad i resisted the temptation to install effy and fiesty, as im crap at development anyway, but i spread the message of Ubuntu as far as i can, and to as many as will listen! :)....having managed to get many people into a linux frame of mind.

thankyou Ubuntu.

burt_57

June 6th, 2007, 04:27 PM

I have done it 5 times so far.
Why you may ask.
I am new to all this and I did some tweaking and had to reinstall :lolflag:

JAPrufrock

June 6th, 2007, 07:02 PM

Only one time when it wasn't my fault.

Rightmantrigger

June 6th, 2007, 07:03 PM

On this computer twice. On my old computer, at least 5.

Spike-X

June 6th, 2007, 11:29 PM

I never had to reinstall Edgy for the few months I ran it.

Installed Feisty as soon as it came out, but needed to reinstall because I stuffed up the partitioning the first time (I'd installed it alongside Edgy, instead of over the top).

Never had to reinstall XP in the year or so I used that. Lost count of the number of times I had to reinstall Win98SE.

Papi-KB7VGW

June 7th, 2007, 12:23 AM

First install lasted 3 month while I tried to learn things. I think I only used W$ 3 times. Last week I spent 3 excruciating day trying to get Fedora 7 to work with my wireless. Finally said 'I don't need this %#@!' and I am happy to say that Ubuntu is where I plan to stay. I will say that the 3 days was a very good learning exp. for me. Maybe I have to start taking more chances like making new kernels then I would probably have higher #s

satx

June 9th, 2007, 11:36 PM

5, ha ha.

djmaxmalta

June 9th, 2007, 11:41 PM

I have been wondering how many times have other people had to reinstall Ubuntu.
installed: 1
Re-installed: 4 times

had 2 problems with ubuntu 6.06 lts and re-installed the 3rd time and worked well and then got fed up and took it off then the Fiesty came out and i done that and till now i haven't reinstalled it exept for a grub issue with windows xp and linspire

ryanVickers

June 9th, 2007, 11:43 PM

this should really be a poll, just a suggestion, to make it eisier for you, and everynoe to easilly see all the stats!

but for the answer, about 6 I think, because of messing up settings, upgrading distrobution versions not working, etc. :p

However, the difference is ubuntu will not really need to be re-installed unless it gerts messed up by the user mby accedent! Where as windows, well..., that's a whole other story!

Carbon Tiger

June 9th, 2007, 11:54 PM

I've been using Ubuntu for ahhhh about five days :-). During that last install run I installed it three times in one day. The hard part was making it play nice with my graphics card. But once I figured everything out it was easy to get it going and keep it going.

Now that I think about it during all that I should have tried kubuntu at least once I mean the Cd is on my self :lolflag:

Matakoo

June 9th, 2007, 11:55 PM

One re-installation, but that was unavoidable. It's kinda hard upgrading from 32-bit to 64-bit otherwise...in my experience, it is very rarely needed to reinstall a Linux system. Easier sometimes maybe, but things can be fixed, if they break, without having to resort to that.

WiFi Ed

June 9th, 2007, 11:55 PM

About 6 times, 3 times with Edgy, 3 times with Feisty, all my fault. Like others, being a neophyte and not knowing how to fix my mistakes the "right" way and/or just wanting to start fresh.

Now that I've learned not to re-size/re-format my home directory during the re-install it's no big deal anymore...

moore.bryan

June 9th, 2007, 11:55 PM

i have a crappy dell (i know some of you think that's redundant), so i was always in-search of the lightest load. two or three dozen reinstalls later i think i have it. wait, maybe i could shave another kilobyte off of something... let me reinstall and let you know.
;-)

Stew2

June 10th, 2007, 12:20 AM

Way too many times :(

cikson

June 10th, 2007, 01:28 AM

Installed : 1
Re-installed : 1

ThinkBuntu

June 10th, 2007, 01:31 AM

Let me think...first distro. After first Zenwalk. After first Debian. Again later. Now.

That makes five total.

DougieFresh4U

June 10th, 2007, 01:42 AM

Oh my god, I don't even know where to begin, but I do know that I have learned from each "borked job" how to set it set up quicker and how to get what I need set up with out much hassle :D

mezzmerized17

June 11th, 2007, 01:32 AM

I'm a tweaker, through-and-through! In the past 6 months I've probably installed some form of Ubuntu 10 times or so. I've installed XP about 6 times and several different distros in Virtual Box (my new favorite vm).
:p
All of this on two machines (desktop and laptop).

Most of the ubuntu issues were involving myself mucking up config files and such. I have recently started working through repairs instead. Much better.