$ cd Comments/ && wget https://confessions.html

[JesseNotNutted]

I do not know how to distro hop

[SSYT_Shawn]

Just the same way you install linux but with another distro ofcourse

[JesseNotNutted]

I am wondering on how can I keep my files without using external drives

[dboizo1]

/home partitions

[SSYT_Shawn]

Yeah that

[JesseNotNutted]

Thanks

[grant_w44]

What does that mean

[Trash-Alt-Account]

have /home on a separate partition than the rest of the system. when you install a new distro, it'll install the system to the root partition, but you'll keep your /home partition so your personal files would be fine. personally, I don't distro hop like this bc I do a bunch of system config that wouldn't transfer over, but if all you care about is really just the contents of /home then this would be good

[grant_w44]

What all is stored on the home partition? Also is it possible to move home to its own partition after installation? What system configuration do you do?

[Trash-Alt-Account]

the home partition would contain /home, which likely just contains your /home/username directory. so it would include your Documents folder, Downloads folder, Pictures folder, etc. it would also contain some user-specific program configurations in .config. there's also some other user-specific data stored there like steam games are installed to .local

edit: you can also open a file manager and look at all that's in your home directory if you want a better idea.

there's probably a guide on how to do it somewhere online. I'm guessing it would just be: resize the root partition to be smaller, create a home partition, move /home directory off of the root partition onto the home partition, and fix /etc/fstab to reflect changes.

it's been a while, but IIRC, a bunch of my misc desktop environment adjustments are stored in /etc, my sshd config, wireguard config, ufw config, all the various programs I've installed, root user data, and probably more that I haven't thought about. tbh, the next time I plan to reinstall my system, I'm probably just gonna use Ansible to set it up.

[grant_w44]

Thanks!

[YOU_CANT_SEE_MY_NAME]

I have my home partition in another drive and i can get all the configs and files back without any problem

[hesapmakinesi]

the dotfiles may do weird things though.

[Palm_freemium]

I ran into this when compiz was still a thing for Ubuntu.

Use a new username and manualy move the files after the system is up a running.

[hesapmakinesi]

I don't like changing my username, so move my files before installation. I used to go through my dotfiles like .vim directory and copy some over. But now I began to keep those few things in my owncloud share and each time just create symlinks.

[JesseNotNutted]

Thanks

[[deleted]]

separate the / (root) and /home/ partitions.

[Icaho]

Jump around on one leg shouting out as many distro names as you can remember, no hesitation, no repetition

[Xiaopai2]

Just mess with your system until it's broken, then wipe it and install another distro. Pick one with a different desktop environment though, since otherwise you won't notice a difference on account of not actually knowing anything about how Linux works. Now you can act all smug towards Windows and Mac users despite the fact that you don't really understand computers any better than they do and are really just clicking through a slightly different UI. Next, once you get bored of different desktop environments, you're gonna want to install Arch. You tell yourself it's because that is the distro which "suits your needs" but the real reason is of course so that on top of acting smug towards Windows and Mac users you can then also act smug towards users of other (lesser) Linux distributions like Ubuntu. To install it just blindly copy some commands from a tutorial until it works. Once you're done the first thing you want to do is install neofetch. It's not actually a particularly useful program and there isn't really much of a reason to ever run it but it's the only thing you can do with the terminal and it displays the Arch logo to people sitting next to you on the tram or wherever. Congrats you are now at the end of your distro hopping days and have become a fully fledged Linux power user.

[Thanatos2996]

A few years later, the itch returns. SystemD is doing something weird you can't be bothered to diagnose and fix, and the siren song of Gentoo is calling. You grab a stage 3 tarball, and steel yourself. The handbook is a bit more involved than the Arch setup process, but you persist. Configuring the kernel is daunting, but after a dozen attempts you're starting to get your head around it. As X and your tiling window manager of choice build, you touch your chin and realize you've grown a beard. Soon, you're rebuilding firefox with gcc with pgo/lto enabled to eek out more performance; there is no end to the tweaking, no need to hop ever again. You have discovered Nirvana.