I am thinking of switching from Fedora 43 KDE to EndeavourOS during the holidays, mostly to try out new stuff, it being Arch-based and rolling release. It would also give me an excuse to finally overwrite my dual boot Windows partition that I now never use (initially set up for playing Minecraft Bedrock with my little brother, but with a PaperMC server w/ Geyser and Floodgate, Windows is no longer necessary). This would be my first “distro hop” (technically I switched from GNOME to KDE, but that’s not really a distro hop since I didn’t reinstall the whole OS), so I have a few questions.
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I have a self-hosted Nextcloud, so how do I make sure that my files will sync properly after I hop? (i.e. avoiding reuploading the same files twice when I set it up in EndeavourOS, not losing any of my files) Similar question on Forgejo/Codeberg and git, does it automagically figure out where the remotes are, or is there something else I have to do?
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How do I properly move program data/settings/etc? (e.g. default templates for LibreOffice, preferences in Godot, Minecraft worlds and mods installed with Prism Launcher) I understand that some programs have some of that built-in (see settings json in VSCodium, exporting bookmarks from Firefox/using Mozilla account to sync settings) but many programs don’t have that functionality.
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I am currently very happy with KDE Plasma. I do have to ask, is there another option aside from KDE that is equally or more customisable? Or would it be better to stick with KDE for better support, compatibility, etc.?
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Are there any Arch/EndeavourOS-specific quirks that I need to know before making the move?
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Finally, does anyone have any tips for distro-hopping? That is, how do I not screw up and lose all my data? I do know that I have to back up all my files before doing this (obviously) in multiple locations.
edit: I have tested a bit in a live boot version of EndeavourOS, and it seems that everything works. Trackpad, Bluetooth, WiFi, sound, etc. all work. One thing I found weird was scaling didn’t work (is that just a live boot thing?). Another thing, EndeavourOS uses X11 rather than Wayland like on Fedora. Will that break any programs? (probably not, usually it’s the inverse, but just checking)
-1. Backup your home directory with
rsync -Paz /home/username destination, this will keep modified dates and copy dotfiles. No asterisks at the end of the path. Restore with the opposite command0. If your
/homedirectory is on a separate partition, you could try preserving it for the new installation, this will keep all your stuff in place.1. When I did this, Nextcloud had no problem identifying files correctly, just make sure to not alter file dates
2. User applications should save their configs in your home directory, so the above should keep them safe, but explore each specific app’s behavior.
3. Cinnamon is kinda like KDE in philosophy but based on GTK instead of Qt. It’s not bad, but KDE is so good these days that it’s hard to compete.
4. Idk, I haven’t used Arch in like a decade, but IMHO you’re currently on the best distro available when it comes to reliability and compatibility, so I guess you could expect less of those. If you have secure boot I think you’ll have to jump through a few hoops that Fedora had spared you… you may want to disable it temporarily.
5. If you have multiple disks with the same capacity, disconnect them all except the one you want to install your OS to.
Damn so I just rsync the home directory? That’s pretty neat. I will stick with KDE then.
Yep. Bear in mind that if you rsync to a remote computer, it will encrypt the traffic and it will be slow, encryption can be disabled but I don’t remember how right now.
Rsyncing to a local drive should be faster. With -P you can resume partial file transfers, should it be interrupted.
Empty the trash folder and delete cache, it will save you a lot of time and disk space.