For example, the suggestion to put /home on a partition to allow switching distros without data loss is an example of flexibility Windows does not have.
Most of the configuration that makes your desktop unique is held in your home directory, unlike Windows that spreads things across the system (such as the registry).
That said, if you do not know Linux, it is difficult to explain your options in a comment.
I am not sure what Windows automation you are referring to. If you mean upgrades between versions, Linux distros do that too. If you mean automatic migration from other operating systems, I am not aware of any Windows functionality for that.
No windows automation. I’ve just seen a lot of people talk about changing distros and wondered if they start fresh every time or if there’s a way to migrate like Ubuntu to Mint to Fedora while keeping programs (or maybe Ubuntu to Mint as they’re both Debian I think but can’t to Fedora maybe?).
After putting Ubuntu Studio on my laptop from Windows it’s been a bit of work to get it how I like it (and I’m loving it). I’d love to try another distro but starting over again seems like a lot of work.
From what I’ve read there’s a way to export a list of installed packages (apps) and import them into the package manager again, but I’ve never tried it. Different distros have different package managers though, so that might not work. And even if they have the same package manager some distros name the package differently, so yeah. I don’t usually switch distros, but if I did, I would definitely start afresh.
Packages and package managers differ between distros. If you are changing distros, you should not try to preserve your package list. You will need to reinstall them.
However, you can often preserve your configurations and customizations by migrating the dot files in your home directory (or the entire home directory).
This is why many people put /home on its own partition. They can then wipe and reinstall the root partition while preserving /home.
This is not the correct take.
For example, the suggestion to put /home on a partition to allow switching distros without data loss is an example of flexibility Windows does not have.
Most of the configuration that makes your desktop unique is held in your home directory, unlike Windows that spreads things across the system (such as the registry).
That said, if you do not know Linux, it is difficult to explain your options in a comment.
I am not sure what Windows automation you are referring to. If you mean upgrades between versions, Linux distros do that too. If you mean automatic migration from other operating systems, I am not aware of any Windows functionality for that.
No windows automation. I’ve just seen a lot of people talk about changing distros and wondered if they start fresh every time or if there’s a way to migrate like Ubuntu to Mint to Fedora while keeping programs (or maybe Ubuntu to Mint as they’re both Debian I think but can’t to Fedora maybe?).
After putting Ubuntu Studio on my laptop from Windows it’s been a bit of work to get it how I like it (and I’m loving it). I’d love to try another distro but starting over again seems like a lot of work.
From what I’ve read there’s a way to export a list of installed packages (apps) and import them into the package manager again, but I’ve never tried it. Different distros have different package managers though, so that might not work. And even if they have the same package manager some distros name the package differently, so yeah. I don’t usually switch distros, but if I did, I would definitely start afresh.
Packages and package managers differ between distros. If you are changing distros, you should not try to preserve your package list. You will need to reinstall them.
However, you can often preserve your configurations and customizations by migrating the dot files in your home directory (or the entire home directory).
This is why many people put /home on its own partition. They can then wipe and reinstall the root partition while preserving /home.