Linux

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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.

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How to distrohop!? (feddit.org)

submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'm on Linux for a couple of years and I love it. Distrohoping never interested me though, I'm content with my flavour. But I need to reinstall my OS soon and it gives me headaches. So many settings I changed, applications I installed, configured and forgot about.
Now I read about all you guys constantly distrohopping for fun, how do you even do this? Do you start from scratch, explore everything and leave after months of putting in all the work of making an OS your own!? Or do you just casually check it out a couple of days? What do you do with all your music, pictures, addons, portable software?

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 5 days ago (10 children)

You can backup you home-directory and add it back into the newly installed OS. Some of the more dedicated distro-hoppers will even have the home-directory on a separate partition, which they don't overwrite during installation and rather just mount into the new OS.

The home-directory contains all your music, pictures, add-ons and portable software. It also contains your configurations under ~/.config/ and local files of applications under ~/.local/.
After you've reinstalled, you won't have all the same applications installed, but once you reinstall them, they should pick up the configuration from those folders and work as you expect. Sometimes, your new distribution/installation might use different versions of that particular software, so it's not guaranteed that everything works perfectly, but it does work pretty well.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 5 days ago (8 children)

I'd go 1 step further and insist on putting home on a separate partition anyway - helps with issues like running out of diskspace.

To answer the original question, boot the distro's ISO from a USB stick and try that (/those) before you actually install anything. You might find some hardware's not supported (ie wifi) until you do a full install, but at least you can eliminate the distros you don't like, quickly.

[–] m4m4m4m4 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Not sure but it seems to me most major distributions offer you to do a separate /home partition by default? I may be wrong but this happens with the likes of Fedora and Ubuntu? Or at least they do recommend to make it that way

[–] AnUnusualRelic 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It might have to do with my being an old fart, but having at least home on a separate disk or partition seems like basic stuff. I've always done it that way.

Of course back in the day, everything had its own partition.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Yeah, I like /var to be in it's own partition so I can keep my system(s) under close control, and a separate /boot seems to be necessary these *EFI days

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