I'm totally baffled as to how you keep getting *buntu installed but grub never installs. Either something is wrong with the way you're installing or you have some BIOS boot sector protection turned on or something odd like that.
This best guide I've seen is Ubuntu wiki page here. About half way down you'll see "Fixing a Broken System." and a little farther down "via the LiveCD terminal." Read that section.
Basic run-down of the steps:
Boot to the liveDVD/USB.
Open a terminal (konsole).
Mount the partition that contains /boot (in your screenshot above - /dev/sda5)
Run grub-install using the "--boot-directory" option pointed at the above mounted partition and install it to the hard drive MBR.
Reboot
A little about Ubuntu vs. Kubuntu: While there is nothing wrong with installing Ubuntu and adding KDE desktop to it, it's not as simple as a one-click. If you search around the forum a bit you'll see some others have run into trouble BUT as far as I can tell that happens when they try to remove the Unity desktop from their systems, not so much using it with both installed. I haven't tried it myself. I can say at your current level of exposure it's good to keep an open mind and try several desktop environments so go for it. However, in the very near future (next year) Ubuntu is planning on breaking away from the open source video standard (X and Wayland) and creating their own video system (Mir) that no one else including Kubuntu will be using. At that point it will not be possible to have Unity (Ubuntu) and KDE (Kubuntu) desktops on the same install. Not a big deal at the moment because you'll want to upgrade by then anyway so you can decide down the road which DE you prefer.
Regarding the "wipe and restore" approach: As a Linux user, this is rarely a required duty. In the Windows world, so much of what's going on within the system is hidden from the user that there's often no way to repair a problem and paving your install is the only solution. Not so with Linux. Nothing is hidden and almost all problems can be solved. My point is: Wiping your hard drive clean and restoring the entire thing because of a grub install issue is equal to using a bulldozer to squash a cockroach. You'll learn more if you don't do that again and instead focus on problem solving > Just my Two Cents.
A final bit of advice and I'll stop acting like I'm your Dad : I, as many others on here, advocate a separate home partition. This allows one to re-install or change your Linux distro without endangering your personal files and settings. Clearly, you're familiar with backups so it's not so much about file protection as it is about convenience. If you're interested on how to do this now without re-installing (again) post a new thread.
<EDIT> Never mind the above paragraph - I re-read and saw you addressed this already.
Let me know how the grub-install goes.
This best guide I've seen is Ubuntu wiki page here. About half way down you'll see "Fixing a Broken System." and a little farther down "via the LiveCD terminal." Read that section.
Basic run-down of the steps:
Boot to the liveDVD/USB.
Open a terminal (konsole).
Mount the partition that contains /boot (in your screenshot above - /dev/sda5)
Run grub-install using the "--boot-directory" option pointed at the above mounted partition and install it to the hard drive MBR.
Reboot
A little about Ubuntu vs. Kubuntu: While there is nothing wrong with installing Ubuntu and adding KDE desktop to it, it's not as simple as a one-click. If you search around the forum a bit you'll see some others have run into trouble BUT as far as I can tell that happens when they try to remove the Unity desktop from their systems, not so much using it with both installed. I haven't tried it myself. I can say at your current level of exposure it's good to keep an open mind and try several desktop environments so go for it. However, in the very near future (next year) Ubuntu is planning on breaking away from the open source video standard (X and Wayland) and creating their own video system (Mir) that no one else including Kubuntu will be using. At that point it will not be possible to have Unity (Ubuntu) and KDE (Kubuntu) desktops on the same install. Not a big deal at the moment because you'll want to upgrade by then anyway so you can decide down the road which DE you prefer.
Regarding the "wipe and restore" approach: As a Linux user, this is rarely a required duty. In the Windows world, so much of what's going on within the system is hidden from the user that there's often no way to repair a problem and paving your install is the only solution. Not so with Linux. Nothing is hidden and almost all problems can be solved. My point is: Wiping your hard drive clean and restoring the entire thing because of a grub install issue is equal to using a bulldozer to squash a cockroach. You'll learn more if you don't do that again and instead focus on problem solving > Just my Two Cents.
A final bit of advice and I'll stop acting like I'm your Dad : I, as many others on here, advocate a separate home partition. This allows one to re-install or change your Linux distro without endangering your personal files and settings. Clearly, you're familiar with backups so it's not so much about file protection as it is about convenience. If you're interested on how to do this now without re-installing (again) post a new thread.
<EDIT> Never mind the above paragraph - I re-read and saw you addressed this already.
Let me know how the grub-install goes.
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