Arch Linux

Seacat17

Member

Registered: 2023-05-13

Posts: 95

(Got the info, tysm) Radical solution: wiping everything.

I am kinda done with my installation. All this x/wayland, pipewire, nvidia, accumulated stuff that keeps breaking.
I am not planning this YET, but I want to know if this is even possible.

I cannot afford wiping my partition, so I'd like to ask if I could do the following:

I want to wipe EVERYTHING from my system, except for the system itself (bootloader, kernel, init system, bare bones drivers), package manager and networking support. All the configs, all the display servers and protocols, all the stuff that refuses to work for me right now would be deleted except for my data and my ability to reboot my system, log into the TTY and gradually install everything back.

Is there a safe way to do that without the risk of completely bricking my system and being forced to wipe my home partition anyway?

I consider this the last solution, if literally nothing will help and I will keep getting dependency loops when trying to uninstall a useless piece of filth that refuses to work properly anyway but keeps triggering the dependency chains.

Last edited by Seacat17 (2025-11-10 19:00:47)

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wickedlester

Member

From: Texas, USA

Registered: 2004-07-22

Posts: 146

Re: (Got the info, tysm) Radical solution: wiping everything.

I think this is what you are looking for.

seth

Member

From: Don't DM me only for attention

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 70,981

Re: (Got the info, tysm) Radical solution: wiping everything.

nb. this will not reset custom global configurations and not touch your $HOME (and personal configs) at all

all the stuff that refuses to work for me

Stuff doesn't "refuse" to work, and (probably/in doubt) re-installing stuff won't typically fix it either (but for corrupted files on your disk)

x/wayland, pipewire, nvidia, accumulated stuff that keeps breaking

So to be clear, you neither want a display server, nor a sound daemon nor do you have an nvidia GPU?
Because otherwise you'll most likely end up in the same spot again after wasting some time.
Figure what and why doesn't work and address that.

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Jristz

Member

From: America/Santiago

Registered: 2011-06-11

Posts: 1,048

Re: (Got the info, tysm) Radical solution: wiping everything.

Shouldn't be easier to save your $HOME stuff and reinstall?

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cryptearth

Member

Registered: 2024-02-03

Posts: 1,828

Re: (Got the info, tysm) Radical solution: wiping everything.

although I usually agree with the "windows style" by wiping and start fresh as seth mentioned: just doing that likely won't magically fix your issues
also: note that many applications as well as the system itself stores quite a lot in your /home as local / user config - so in order to "properly" clean your system you either have to wipe those local user configs yourself - or go the other way around: backup your data and wipe /home, too
same as with packages are not supposed to install something into your /home they're not supposed to remove something from it - but that only applies to the packages itself - not what the application does - same goes for your DE - so if you have some broken config somewhere in your /home redoing the system would not just not help but would fail in the same way as the local user configs are not cleaned unless you do it yourself

I actually thought about starting from scratch myself - and then build my system in a way that my /home/<user> will be the mountpoint of a zfs dataset instead a folder within with my /home being a partition on the main os drive - but this might come with issues on its own - currently I don't have much in other folders other than my zfs mountpoint - hence my /home is currently only a few gb used out of 250gb total - and I already shrunk that from 300gb+ to have about 80gb free for a second os in dual-boot

Last edited by cryptearth (2025-11-10 18:01:53)

Seacat17

Member

Registered: 2023-05-13

Posts: 95

Re: (Got the info, tysm) Radical solution: wiping everything.

Thank you all for responding. I got both the way to do this and a few important advises that mention things I didn't think of when I was hotheaded.

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