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I am currently using KUbuntu 22.04 LTS. I had thought that LTS meant long-term bug fixing, and not needing to reinstall / upgrade weekly or monthly, and getting stability and bugfixes.

I have discovered that while I have stability, I do not have bug fixes. In particular, plasma is still on the 5.x branch, with bugs and missing settings.

As I understand it, the "current best" I can do is every two years, update to the next LTS -- starting with 24.04.01 next month. (People are still saying to avoid the .0's in April). And even then, only getting updates every 6 months, and significant bugfixes only every 2 years.

That's not a desired state for me.

What I want: Relatively up to date KDE (sorry, I really dislike Gnome). Not "bleeding edge" / weekly dev updates, but rather "Yep, this has been tested and works". Updates to the system packages and login system (... why does the login screen / lock screen ignore my settings, and use a non-adjusted set of settings that includes things like "You closed the laptop lid? I'll move all your windows to the external monitor, and stay awake; why would you assume that's shutting down?").

I am not asking "What's the best distribution for my needs" (I'm asking that elsewhere); I am asking, "What's the best way to change distributions".

Am I required to reinstall to get a new distribution? Is there a way to just switch "Here are where you get packages" / "these are the packages for this distribution"?

What issues are likely to come up from swapping distributions? Is it safe? (which gets back to "do I have to reinstall")

And if I do have to reinstall, is there a good way to do so onto a second SSD? (I have seen some distributions that rely on fully automated installs that won't let you use partitions or second drives as you want -- they force reformats / specific install layouts.)

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    This question is similar to: How to reinstall Ubuntu in the easiest way?. If you believe it’s different, please edit the question, make it clear how it’s different and/or how the answers on that question are not helpful for your problem.
    – guiverc
    Commented Aug 14 at 1:03
  • I suggest reading my answer in that question.. I regularly start with one flavor (Lubuntu), add packages & data files, adjust settings to be different from default & make system somewhat my own... I then non-destructively reinstall Ubuntu Desktop on it; expecting my data files to remain & my additional manually installed apps to still be there... I then next install Xubuntu Desktop... again expecting data to remain, my manually installed packages present.. but original LXQt desktop which was became GNOME now is Xfce... etc.. Finally re-install Lubuntu and expect what I changed LXQt to.
    – guiverc
    Commented Aug 14 at 1:06
  • Do note: this works with Ubuntu and flavors of Ubuntu due to the install scripts; however this capability IS NOT AVAILABLE for all distributions, and is somewhat disabled on Ubuntu ISOs using ubuntu-desktop-installer too for now (see comments on dup link provided), but is still available for 24.04 & oracular (24.10) where using ISOs using calamares & Ubuntu install scripts. It was in QA testing that what I described last comment, that an issue with ubuntu-desktop-provision was detected & thus FORMAT is currently forced preventing this type of install
    – guiverc
    Commented Aug 14 at 1:08
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    If you're after WHAT IS BEST though; a forum maybe a better place to go, as you're asking for off-topic OPINION. This is a Q&A site; where the Question is supposed to be a problem that needs to be solved, and Answers are the different alternatives that will address that problem... Each answer may have pros and cons, but there will be no best as that'll be off-topic Opinion. Opinions are best handled on forums, ubuntuforums.org being the address of Ubuntu Forums (Your question maybe close-voted as being too broad also)
    – guiverc
    Commented Aug 14 at 1:13
  • FYI : I'm using a Lubuntu session currently, ie. LXQt desktop packaged by the Lubuntu team.. but my install media was actually a Xubuntu ISO... All Ubuntu flavors are still Ubuntu systems, thus you can effect change via just package change (my ^ re-install method worked because they were all Ubuntu systems, but re-install can cater with some changes from other distros) so there are many alternatives; based on your skillset. What u/user535733 suggests in answer is probably BEST if you are asking the question though (it's more work, but you're less likely to make a mistake!)
    – guiverc
    Commented Aug 14 at 2:37

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Reinstallation is required for non-experts. A different distro isn't like changing a theme. The differences are very deep and changes very invasive. Changing distros is a complete brain transplant.

You change distributions by:

  1. Backup your data to a different media.
  2. Clean-install the new distribution using that distro's installer. This usually involves reformatting the storage partition, so all your data and settings and customizations will be deleted.
  3. Restore your data from the backup, if desired.

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