[clue-tech] Abortive install - Xubuntu 7.10 (Alternative)

[David L. Anselmi]

. wrote:
[...]
> After several hours of churning away, during which I *think* that most of
> the  OS and programs were installed, the computer froze with a black
> screen and the words "GRUB Loading stage1.5 _" in the upper left hand
> corner.
> I was expecting to see some kind of dual-boot screen.

It may well have been there and either went on without you or needed 
some interaction to display.  Feel free to reinstall and if it gets 
stuck there again let us know.

> In what appears to be a mis-guided attempt to correct the mess and 
> return to the previous condition, I re-formatted the partition in
> which Linux was installed. There doesn't seem to be an "un-install"
> procedure.

See the first entry at:

http://www.serve.com/cmtan/buddhism/Lighter/aikoans.html

What you did is exactly the uninstall procedure for Linux.  But you 
really wanted to uninstall the boot loader, not Linux.

A terse description of the boot process is here:

http://oldfield.wattle.id.au/luv/boot.html

or you can google around for one that is more verbose.

Dave