Thinking about hopping from Ubuntu to Fedora, or from Pop!_OS to Debian, without sacrificing your files? You can switch Linux distributions and keep your data intact if you plan the move with the same care you’d use for a hardware upgrade. Below are three proven, expert-backed approaches that address most scenarios—whether you’re refreshing a laptop, rebuilding a workstation, or just testing the waters on a spare SSD.
Method 1 Put Home On Its Own Partition And Reuse It
This is the cleanest long-term strategy. During installation, choose manual partitioning and place your /home directory on a separate partition or disk (ext4 remains a safe default; XFS or Btrfs are fine if both distros support them well). On your next distro install, mount that existing /home without formatting it, and install the OS to a different partition.
Two details protect you from permission headaches. First, reuse the same username. Second, match the user’s numeric UID and GID. On systems using systemd, most desktop users have UID 1000; confirm with the getent passwd command on the old system and recreate the user with the same UID on the new one. If you skip this, your files may appear owned by an “unknown user.”
Expect some dotfile turbulence. GNOME and KDE, for example, store settings under different hidden folders in your home directory. If your desktop environment changes, consider moving app-specific configs out of the way before first login, then reintroduce them selectively. Power users often keep media, VMs, and project folders in dedicated directories within /home and leave app configs for a fresh start.
Why this matters: once your /home is decoupled from the OS, future distro switches are nearly “stateless.” Fedora’s use of Btrfs by default and openSUSE’s snapshot tooling reinforce this design, but the approach works across mainstream distros.
Method 2 Back Up And Restore With Verification
If your current layout puts everything on one partition, a full backup-and-restore is the safe route. Use battle-tested tools: Déjà Dup for simple encrypted backups, BorgBackup or Restic for deduplicated archives, or rsync for a straight file copy. Back up your entire home directory—including hidden files—so application settings and SSH keys survive the migration.
Follow the 3-2-1 rule: three copies of your data, on two different media, with one offsite. Before you wipe anything, perform a test restore of a few critical folders to verify integrity and permissions. Storage reliability isn’t theoretical—Backblaze’s multi-year reports show annualized HDD failure rates hovering around 1–2%, which is reason enough to double-check your backup and keep an extra copy.
Snapshot tools can help but know their limits. Timeshift excels at system snapshots and rollback and, by default, excludes personal files unless you toggle user directories on Btrfs or add includes for the rsync mode. If you rely on Timeshift, pair it with a dedicated backup of your home to avoid unpleasant surprises after a clean install.
After installing the new distro, create your user, log in once to initialize the home folder, then restore data. Restoring directly as your user preserves ownership. If you must copy as root, use options that keep metadata intact so file permissions and timestamps remain correct.
Method 3 Move Big Folders To A Data Disk And Link Them
When your goal is a lean OS plus durable data, relocate heavyweight directories—Documents, Pictures, Downloads, Videos, your Steam library, VMs, and Git repos—to a secondary disk. Mount that disk at a stable path such as /mnt/data using an fstab entry with a UUID, then either bind-mount those folders back into your home or create symlinks.
Bind mounts offer reliability because they behave like real directories and don’t break if a path changes slightly. Symlinks are lighter but can fail if the target isn’t mounted yet. On desktops that honor the XDG user directories spec, you can also repoint standard folders so applications save to the data disk by default.
This “hybrid” approach shines for frequent distro-hoppers: reinstall the OS on a small SSD as often as you like while your multi-gigabyte assets remain unchanged on the data disk. It’s especially practical for creators and developers whose workspaces dwarf the size of the operating system.
Pre-flight Checks That Prevent Data Loss
Inventory what matters. Beyond Documents, think SSH keys, GPG keys, browser profiles, email archives, container images, dotfiles, and license files. Export anything locked inside an app’s database if needed.
Verify filesystems. Ensure both old and new distros have solid support for your chosen filesystem. Mixing experimental features across distros can slow troubleshooting.
Record your network and package state. Save a list of installed packages and Flatpaks, and capture network or VPN settings. Re-creating environment parity saves hours after the switch.
Bottom Line Choose The Strategy That Fits Your Setup
If you can redesign the layout, a dedicated /home partition is the most future-proof. If you can’t, a verified backup-and-restore is dependable and portable. For maximal flexibility, park large folders on a data disk and link or bind-mount them. Whichever path you choose, test restores on noncritical hardware first and keep an extra backup until you’re sure everything survived the hop.
