The Linux Ship of Theseus

  1. pick any distro and install it.

  2. Then, without installing another distro over the top of it, slowly convert it into another distro by replacing package managers, installed packages, and configurations.

System must be usable and fully native to the new distro (all old packages replaced with new ones).

No flatpaks, avoid snaps where physically possible, native packages only.

EDIT: Some clarification on some of the clever tools brought up here:

chroot, dd, debootstrap, and partition editors that allow you to install the new system in an empty container or blanket-overwrite the old system go against the spirit of this challenge.

These are very useful and valid tools under a normal context and I strongly recommend learning them.

You can use them if you prefer, but The ship of Theseus was replaced one board at a time. We are trying to avoid dropping a new ship in the harbor and tugging the old one out.

It may however be a good idea to use them to test out the target system in a safe environment as you perform the migration back in the real root, so you have a reference to go by.

Easy: pick two similar distros, such as Ubuntu and Debian or Manjaro and Arch and go from the base to the derivative.

Medium: Same as easy but go from the derivative to the base.

Hard: Pick two disparate distros like Debian and Artix and go from one to the other.

Nightmare: Make a self-compiled distro your target.

  • IngeniousRocks (They/She) @lemmy.dbzer0.com
    1·
    8 months ago

    I’ve got a blank macbook air at home waiting for a project.

    I’ve never undergone a project like this without cheating by using bedrock linux as an intermediary then “Unbedrocking” my install (officially impossible, unofficially insane) with another PM as my default to convert from debian to arch years ago.

    This is gonna be fun, or hellish, idk I’ll find out.

    • Digit@lemmy.wtfEnglish
      2·
      11 days ago

      I’ve done the impossible/insane on the other side… manually imported a live system from usb into bedrock.

      If I then did an unbedrocking… that’s a fun double janky way to install a live ISO to “exactly” like it is on the live system.

      … I’d never do that though. If I did, I’d just re-hijack it again, back to bedrock.

  • steeznson@lemmy.world
    1·
    8 months ago

    It is quite easy to go slackware -> gentoo from what I remember but minimalist distros might be cheating

  • NicolaHaskell@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    8 months ago

    without installing another distro over the top of it … [replace] package managers

    The package manager is the distro, though.

    $ pacman -S apk-tools
$ apk add alpine-base linux-lts

    Then kexec to alpine’s kernel and the initramfs generated by its installation (which would incidentally “replace” PID 1 with the new /sbin/init). For clean up you could take a diff of “tar -t” for all the installed packages from both distros then delete the files only in the old distro’s packages.

    Make a self-compiled distro your target.

    Replace the first step with a compilation of apk, abuild everything required by alpine-base and linux-lts (git clone aports to bootstrap that work), then add the package directory to /etc/apk/repositories before the second step. Next, begin to worry that you haven’t fully broken free yet, replace abuild with a bespoke mybuild and apk with tar -x, grapple with signed binaries, reflect on your own identity and authenticity, then take a tour through gentoo and find yourself missing the $HOME you left and its familiar comforts.

    • Digit@lemmy.wtfEnglish
      1·
      11 days ago

      Yup. Too easy. Cheat codes.

      spoiler

      brl fetch <newdistro> ; brl remove -d <olddistro>

  • Jiří Král@discuss.tchncs.de
    0·
    8 months ago

    I am not educated enough about this, but don’t these kind of games unnecesarrily strain all the servers that host the packages for people that really need them for download and most of these people run these servers for free in good will and faith that they will serve meaningful needs with positive impact? I am sorry for spoiling the fun, but I felt like I had to point this out.