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.

  • 🌘 Umbra Temporis 🌒@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    8 months ago

    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
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      8 months ago

      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 @[email protected] suggested. Of course, their suggestion is the easiest, but this is the one I personally chose.

  • Luci@lemmy.ca
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    8 months ago

    Copy them to an external drive or another computer, copy them back after.

    Chances are you’re gonna wanna wipe the partition table on your switch over so I’d just copy them out then back in. No point over complicating things.

    • LeFantome@programming.dev
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      8 months ago

      I have actually done this more than once. It works but you can end up with a few rough edges if you remove the Manjaro specific stuff. Nothing serious.

      If you want to make the switch completely, there are quite a few steps: https://forum.endeavouros.com/t/howto-convert-manjaro-to-endeavouros/5954/97

      One thing I am curious about is what happens if you just add the EOS repos to Manjaro.

      My biggest gripe with Manjaro is the way they hold packages back and the issues that causes with the AUR. If you had both, I imagine you would mostly just get the EOS packages for anything that was not Manjaro specific. If you also migrate the kernel to an EOS ( actually Arch ) package, most of the Manjaro damage would be contained.

      Adding the eos-hooks package would make it report as EOS as well.

      I might just give it a shot just to see what happens.

  • db2@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I’d recommend starting fresh. Make a new one but don’t delete the old one. You can then copy over what you want without bringing over anything like dotfiles with bad settings.

  • scratchandgame@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    WHY THERE ARE NOT.

    Please have a partition for /home. In fact, you need partition for /usr, /var,… too

    • Luci@lemmy.ca
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      8 months ago

      I’d be careful, not every distro plays nice when you do this. In my experience at least.

  • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    If /home is on a different partition just don’t format it and set it to mount on the same place and you should be good to go. If it’s not make a backup, then create a partition just for it, install your new system, restore the backup, and next time you won’t need a backup.