Installing Linux Mint Debian Edition into existing partitions: What's there to look out for?

Question

I have four partitions on a hard drive, two of which are boot loaders. One is the /boot partition, one is the boot loader of Windows 7.

Now, the Linux running on it, is an old Fedora. I'd like to install Linux Mint Debian Edition into the Fedora partition, and the boot loader that comes with it (GRUB2, iirc), while not messing up the Windows part.

Is it safe to do that? I remember people talking about LMDE being overly simplified, etc. Will I be able to even select what partition to use for installation and boot loaders?

Answer 1

Selecting mount points is too basic, I don't think any graphical installer out there will omit it. The Mint installer has a manual mode where you can change the partitions and assign mount points to them. Beside / and /boot I think there will also be a swap partition, remember to check it too.

I haven't used Mint lately, but I remember that GRUB has no problem with detecting a Windows installation and add an entry to the boot selection. That should not be a problem either.

Indeed, I think you should just go ahead with the installation :)

Answer 2

Everything should be fine. The only problem I know of is that the LMDE installer does not give you the option of using partitions on a second drive. See here for a discussion of the problem.

You can set up on your primary HDD however you like. If you want a setup spread across multiple HDDs however, you will have to configure it manually after install.

Nevertheless, LMDE is great and I highly recommend it!