As I wrote in my last post, I decided to reinstall Ubuntu 11.10 via live CD. I had to do this because I tried to be fancy and modify the installation I already had and really messed things up. Luckily, it proved to be easy to reinstall.

Once I made the CD (easy-peasy – follow the instructions on the Ubuntu website), I popped it in and restarted my computer. It whirred up and I was quickly greeted with 2 options:

  1. Try out Ubuntu with the live CD – this allows you to play with Ubuntu without making any changes to your system
  2. Install Ubuntu

I chose to install and was pleasantly surprised with 4 options that made the installation process easy and worry-free

  1. Erase Ubuntu 11.10 and reinstall – this option included a warning that all existing files and settings (on Ubuntu) would be erased
  2. Upgrade Ubuntu 11.10 to Ubuntu 11.10 – sounds redundant but this allows you to update the installation without erasing your files and settings
  3. Erase everything and reinstall – this option also included a warning that everything on the whole system would be erased, not only on the part of the system that Ubuntu currently lives (remembering I have Windows 7 and Ubuntu 11.10 living side by side on this system)
  4. Something else – this allows you to resize the partitions on your system if you want to

So I chose the first option and after a few questions

  • Location (for date & time)
  • Keyboard layout
  • Name and password
  • Login options

the installation began at 8:25 and completed at 8:51 with a prompt to restart.

Voila. Ubuntu 11.10 has been reinstalled alongside my existing Windows 7.

And yes, I am not removing Unity (yet 🙂 ) So far, I like that it hides. I seem to remember it not auto-hiding on earlier versions, taking up too much valuable screen-space – especially on my Dell mini 9. So the auto-hide is a good thing.