having read many threads that outline the pros of different distros, i'm curious to know how many people have actually migrated from one distro to another.

i've gathered from these posts that mandrake is the easiest distro, especially regarding compatibility of hardware. then i'd imagine that a user gets familiar with linux and may want to go onto something more complicated (slackware?). but how does one go about doing that with regards to maintaining old files created with the other distro, and the like?

so yes, this is a combo question (and anybody can answer! ). i'd like to know if anyone actually took upon another linux distro and how it was done. was it worth it? were there challenges?

oh yes, all that good stuff.

Well, my first Distro I ever tried out was in fact Turbo Linux. That was a hassle, at the time it was one of the hardest or very difficult to get X working. From there I played and learned on TurboLinux, having heard of others just didn't have any disks or anything, I got a copy of Redhat and went from there and been using it ever since as my main distro.
Though on the side, I use Slackware as well on another machine so I guess you can say I use both though.
But besides that, I have used or installed let see the order if I can remember them....

1. TurboLinux
2. RedHat
3. Mandrake
4. Slackware
5. SuSE
6. Corel
7. Debian

So Turbo got me started, ended up not liking it and my choice now is either Redhat or Turbo.

Turbo is based off of Redhat which made it a easy transistion... there was something about Trubo though I didn't ever like.. not sure exactly. Haven't tried out any newer versions of it lately.

I started with RedHat 6.2, as it was what the ISP I was working at used so I knew I'd get a lot of help. The only thing was, my video card was not supported at the time and it took me almost a month and a half to get it working. Even then it was not smooth, although I learned a lot when things went wrong.

Some time later I installed Storm Linux (a Vancouver BC based Linux distro that has since filed for protection I think), but the only person who was using it that I knew didn't have a lot of time to help me.

I then went back to RedHat 7.0, tried Mandrake and have finally settled on RedHat 7.1. I like the install process with RH, the package manager and over all support base.

Whichever suits you the best! is what the linux thing is all about. Thank God all distros are priced reasonably low. I started out with mandrake as a lot of first timers do on advice of a linux user who has been there before. Personally, I love SuSE! It is very easy for beginners and extremely configurable for experienced users. Yast ( the suse setup tool) is great for installs as well as later sys admin tweaks.

As for how you can keep your important files intact while you travel the frontiers of linux distros... You should partition your /home and even, it never hurts and only helps, yur /usr directories on separate partitions. Then install the different distros as you see fit and play with them to see which ones you prefer. I have never had a problem doing this and , of course, no data loss...

Good Luck!

I just upload all my stuff on my server (nfs) and switch between distro's and OS's like switching the TV

Used:

Slackware
Redhat
SuSE
ROCK
{Free|Open|Net}BSD
Plan9
Darwin
The Hurd

And lots more to try out