Arch Linux

lobotomiteqt5

Member

Registered: 2026-01-02

Posts: 34

can i reinstall without formatting the disk?

can i just rm -rf the existing installation and do the usual installation stuff that comes after partitioning? i want to do this to keep my @home subvolume because its too big for me to backup on a different disk

seth

Member

From: Won't reply 2 private help req

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 78,379

Re: can i reinstall without formatting the disk?

Theoretically, but https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XY_problem
Why do you think you want to re-install anything (when not changing hardware or partition layout)?

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lobotomiteqt5

Member

Registered: 2026-01-02

Posts: 34

Re: can i reinstall without formatting the disk?

changed hardware, everything except the ssd

Trilby

Inspector Parrot

Registered: 2011-11-29

Posts: 30,529

Website

Re: can i reinstall without formatting the disk?

So?  There aren't different versions of packages for different hardware.  Just rebuild your initramfs.

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"UNIX is simple and coherent" - Dennis Ritchie; "GNU's Not Unix" - Richard Stallman