Introduction

This page is part of the Quick Start for Balsa. It tells you how to remove Balsa from a Linux Machine.

Before you you remove Balsa completely, you should back up your data from within Balsa. Once Balsa is removed, you will not be able to access the data.

Instructions

If the machine is currently booted into Balsa, restart it into the regular Linux system:

1. Click the button at the right of the bottom toolbar and select Restart.
2. In the boot menu, choose a regular Linux entry, i.e., not the entry labeled Balsa on SD.

Once booted into the regular Linux system:

1. Log into an account with sudo privileges.
2. Open a terminal session.
3. Type the following commands:

sudo rm /etc/grub.d/*_balsa
sudo update-grub

The Terminal program will ask you for your password. The next time you restart the machine, there will be no Balsa entry in the grub boot menu.

The Balsa Data

Even after Balsa has been removed from the grub boot menu, the Balsa data will still be present on the machine in the directory /balsafiles. If you are sure you have no more need for the Balsa data on this machine, you can delete it in a Terminal session with this command:

sudo rm -rf /balsafiles /balsaswap.img

Be extremely careful to enter this command EXACTLY as shown. Do NOT leave a space between the / and balsafiles or the / and balsaswap.img. A / followed by a space tells Linux to delete every file!

A Warning About Automatic Backup

Balsa saves a backup copy of the user's data on the Balsa device. If you delete the Balsa data, and later run Balsa again, Balsa will restore the data from the Balsa device. If don't want that to happen, remake the Balsa device from scratch as well. See Downloading and Producing a Balsa SD card.