Okay, let me set up the reason for this mess. My Radeon 5700 XT was misbehaving, so I picked up a used NVidia 2070 Super from eBay (a risky decision, I know). I don't do much gaming anymore, so I really don't need a fancy schmanzy gaming card, but it was a good deal on eBay so I bought it. I swap the cards and it works. Sort of. Suddenly the computer fails to recognize my keyboard, and a few other USB items. I instinctively know immediately the problem. The new card is gulping down power like an air conditioner in 110 degree heat. My existing power supply simply doesn't have enough juice. I order a new 850 watt power supply. I manage to get the keyboard recognized again by playing musical chairs with my USB cables.
Meanwhile I decide to try out MX Linux. It's actually #1 in the list of distros on distrowatch.com. I want to see what the hubbub is all about. So I flash a USB drive to install MX Linux on a second partition where my copy of Kubuntu exists.
There's no room for a second partition. This is a 256GB SSD. A 256GB SSD??? What was I thinking buying one of those? Curiosity got the better of me, so I searched all my orders on Amazon and Newegg to see when I bought it. It doesn't show up on either site. Did this drive just magically appear when I build this computer? I have no idea where this drive came from, but I have to replace it with at least a 1TB drive to get more than one useful distro to fit. Yeah, I know Linux distros can take up very little space, but I install a lot of software and data on my default copy of Linux. Kubuntu is already taking up more than 3/4 of that 256GB drive. I have to pull apart the PC to replace the power supply anyway, so why not swap a 1TB drive for the 256GB drive?
The power supply arrives. I replace the old klunker with the new power supply, replace the 256G drive with a 1TB SSD, say a prayer, and turn on the computer. No burning smell. That's always a good sign. The computer boots and everything is working.
I put the old 256G drive on a USB dongle thingy. I use a free (as in beer) bootable USB with Clonezilla on it to copy my fully packed Kubuntu to the first partition on the new drive. If it works, I don't know, because I can't boot into Kubuntu. I suspect the grub boot loader is the culprit. I boot a Kubuntu live USB stick, chroot to the copy on the new drive in order to re-run grub. Incidentally, here's how you do that (assuming the Linux you want to chroot to in order to use is installed on /dev/sda1):
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda
mount -t proc proc /mnt/sda/proc
mount -t sysfs /sys /mnt/sda/sys
mount --bind /dev /mnt/sda/dev
mount --bind /dev/pts /mnt/sda/dev/pts
chroot /mnt/sda
I run update-grub, reboot, and I still can't boot Kubuntu. I'm pretty sure I could use grub-install or hunt down some grub settings somewhere to make it work, but I decide instead to install Kubuntu from scratch. I've changed a lot on this PC since I first installed Kubuntu and I figure a new install will let me start fresh. And I always have the 256GB drive as a reference copy for any settings I need to match on the new install.
Kubuntu installs like a dream, and I can now dual boot Windows and Kubuntu. Time to add MX Linux.
I boot from a live MX Linux USB thumb drive and start the installation. I attempt to create a new partition on the 1TB drive but the installer won't let me create anything larger than 8 MB. What the actual FSCK? I google the interwebs to see what I'm doing wrong, but nothing matches any search terms I use.
No matter. I boot Kubuntu and create a new partition that way. Then I boot the MX Linux thumb drive again, and this time it complains that I don't have a UEFI partition.
MX Linux is supposedly popular because it's good for new Linux users. All those new Linux users must be installing it as the only operating system on their PC, because when you want to specify the disk configuration yourself, MX Linux sucks. The Kubuntu installer automatically knows where to find the EFI partition and use it. I contemplate telling MX Linux where to find the Windows /windows/boot/efi, but then if the MX Linux installer is this stupid, I don't want to risk letting it screw around with the existing partition. Instead, I make a 100MB /boot/efi partition especially for MX Linux.
The rest of the installation proceeds smoothly, and I'm ready to try out MX Linux. Yeah, it's cool. I see nothing particularly special about it so far, but it's okay.
Then I go to boot back into Kubuntu. I'm greeted with the MX Linux grub boot system, pick Kubuntu, and Kubuntu takes so long to load I suspect it hung. I risk waiting it out and Kubuntu finishes starting up. I run update-grub in order to use Kubuntu's boot loader, but a reboot takes me back to the MX Linux boot loader. I suspect this is all because I created and used that new /boot/efi partition for MX Linux.
So I re-install Kubuntu from scratch. That way I'm sure the boot loader will use the old EFI partition from Windows. If that screws with MX Linux, I'll just dump MX Linux.
Fortunately, it does not. MX Linux boots fine from the Kubuntu boot screen. If I ever see any reason to adopt MX Linux as my default KDE distro, I'll let you know. But I suspect I'm going to be sticking with Kubuntu.
