i installed it 20 years ago and have daily driven it since. i’ve never needed to reinstall or anything, it has just evolved with the times and my tastes. i love being able to customize everything. i have it wake up and update itself on a schedule so i’m rarely waiting for compiles to finish. everything is tuned for my hardware and it feels really snappy. idk it’s just great. not for everyone!

if it helps i’ve been using the same install of gentoo since 2007. the hard drives, cpu, ram, init system, and everything else changed but it’s still that same install. or is it? vsauce music

your customizations should usually go in /etc and /usr/local so you could back those up. your distro ought to have a guide on backing up your package selection. but yeah i don’t enjoy wiping everything and starting over