May, I introduce you to bedrock

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

Okay i'll cheat with Guix then

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.

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.

So, any distro to any other distro?

• Installs Fedora Silverblue
• Rebases to Bazzite

Jobs done chief!

I once switched from Debian i386 to amd64 in-place. That was MUCH harder than you would expect, I guess somewhere between medium and hard in your list. That server is still running that install btw, so in the end it all worked out.

I "broke" linux mint just by trying to pop KDE on, had to timeshift because it messed up my keyboard layout and a whole bunch of other things with my display.

I don't know how people do these crazy changes without pain, and have a feeling the answer is simply "there's pain" 😂

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.