this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2024
51 points (94.7% liked)

Linux

48340 readers
446 users here now

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon by Alpár-Etele Méder, licensed under CC BY 3.0

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

The title says it all, I'd like to switch my operating system and preserve most of my files. Any other info I should know before the move would be nice as well.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] UmbraTemporis@lemmy.dbzer0.com 34 points 8 months ago (1 children)

If you're frequently distro-hopping, I recommend using a seperate /home partition. I did that before I settled down, I can't begin to describe how convenient it was (especially if you use Flatpak).

[–] sorrybookbroke@sh.itjust.works 8 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

To do this one could install the new distro on a new partition, boot to it, delete everything from the old installation except the hone directory, move your user to the base directory (/home/sorrybookbroke -> /sorrybookbroke) before editing your /etc/fstab and mounting the old partition to /home

This way, no external drive is needed like @Luci@lemmy.ca suggested. Of course, their suggestion is the easiest, but this is the one I personally chose.

[–] zwekihoyy@lemmy.ml 0 points 8 months ago

this is so much more wlrk