Salutations!

I’ve been running Manjaro on my T495 without a hitch for a long time, now. With all the chatter about Manjaro possibly not being maintained, I wanted to explore jumping to a different distro like CachyOS. The problem is, when I installed Manjaro on a BTRFS filesystem, I didn’t make a separate /home partition. Is there a way to migrate to CachyOS without deleting /home?

I realize BTRFS uses subvolumes instead of “real” partitions, but I’m not sure how to proceed. In my initial searches, there is a process to rename the subvolumes to something else, install CachyOS, then use rsync to restore my files, but I don’t know WHERE to do this. In the LiveUSB environment? During the installer? (See post Here)

Or am I better off just using rsync to backup the whole /home folder to an external drive, install CachyOS fresh, then rsync my files over when the installer is completed but before I boot for the first time?

Apologies if this is some basic stuff, I just don’t want to lose any data, especially my Docker containers and pictures.

  • OwOarchist@pawb.socialEnglish
    0·
    12 hours ago

    Or am I better off just using rsync to backup the whole /home folder to an external drive, install CachyOS fresh, then rsync my files over when the installer is completed but before I boot for the first time?

    That would be simpler.

    Or, even just do it after the first boot in the new system. It shouldn’t hurt anything to replace the contents of your /home directory. Just copy it over and then reboot. (Save a copy of the original somewhere as a backup, just in case it breaks something.)

  • thenextguy@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    16 hours ago

    Just don’t format the disk. Boot the installer, mount the partition, delete the folders other than home, and then install.

  • tinylightshow@lemmy.dbzer0.comOPEnglish
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    18 hours ago

    Thank you, everyone!

    I’m thinking rsync is going to be my best bet, then I can restore things as needed without messing anything up in hidden folders. I have a spare hard drive I can use as a lifeboat but should that be in ext4 or btrfs? Or does it even matter?

    • PancakesCantKillMe@lemmy.worldEnglish
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      17 hours ago

      It shouldn’t matter, but I would use ext4 for simplicity’s sake. I bring that concept up again because if you can make a process more simple, it is obviously easier to understand and you’ll then have time for the complexities that inevitably pop up. And they will.

  • PancakesCantKillMe@lemmy.worldEnglish
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    20 hours ago

    I would choose the rsync–>backup /home to external disk then install Cachy fresh, then copy /home back.

    It’s a known, clean and simple process. Why complicate things further?

        • Magister@lemmy.worldEnglish
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          18 hours ago

          Yes but switching distro you can fuck up some settings… Better to copy documents downloads etc but all the hidden directories I do it selectively

          • PancakesCantKillMe@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            18 hours ago

            Gotcha. I suppose I would grab everything and then selectively restore what I need. Having the backup also allows one to paw through it for settings or whatever you might’ve forgotten.

  • Björn@swg-empire.deEnglish
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    21 hours ago

    Doing a backup is good practice either way. But I’ve done plenty of Linux installs where I simply deleted everything on / except for /home and then installed onto that. Never saw a distribution that couldn’t handle it.

    You should maybe take a look at your /etc/fstab and see how your subvolumes are laid out. Maybe Cachy needs something different for stuff like snapper. But that’s nothing you can’t fix manually.