• yamanii@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I thought the point of Linux was not doing this every year like with Windows?

    • Hexarei@programming.dev
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      8 months ago

      I’ve been running the same installation of Manjaro since 2018, across three different machines. Each time I’ve upgraded hardware I just pop the SSD out and stick it in the new motherboard. Zero instability or troubles from that. Meanwhile I’ve done that to my wife’s Windows PC and it resulted in going through a whole rigmarole with calling Microsoft because the OS install was suddenly no longer activated.

      Linux didn’t even care that I went from AMD to Intel to AMD.

    • kshade@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      You don’t have to do this, I manage some machines that haven’t been reinstalled for over a decade. It’s really just because “it feels cleaner”, I guess.

    • Rolder@reddthat.com
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      8 months ago

      Whose doing it every year with Windows? I’ve had it for years and only reinstalled once when I got a bunch of new hardware

      • TwanHE@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        I reinstall about every 6 months, or whenever there is a big feature update. It’s rather noticeable when running benchmarks that performance drops over time mostly 0.1% lows.

        Especially when running a stripped install, Microsoft somehow always finds a way to enable shit again or reinstall bloat with updates.

    • Ibaudia@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Realistically you don’t have to if you’re not constantly tinkering, but if you’re changing a lot of low-level stuff without knowing what you’re doing, you have the ability to break things. If you don’t know how to fix them, then it’s easier to just reformat. Basically it’s a skill issue lol.

    • agent_flounder@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      It is nowhere near necessary to reinstall the OS to fix anything… at least for Mint and Raspbian which are the two I’ve used over the last decade. I may have done an upgrade on mint a few times. Otherwise it chugged on merrily.

      PS: now that I think about it I’ve never reinstalled windows on my old laptop either. I like to find the root cause of problems and fix them rather than giving up and reinstalling… call me crazy?