So I have heard of this, but nothing useful came up when I googled for it. I am a total n00b with linux.
Burn a copy of the linux distro you want to hop onto without it wearing protection. Once that's done, throw the disk at your monitor and don't forget to scoop up some of that nutella and peanut butter you have on your sexy computer desk and smear it onto your monitor to replicate faecal matter. The addition of red jelly to the mix would compliment the replicant faecal matter suggesting that anal buggery had been a component of the linux distro hopping experience.
@Loser: dude...
Distro hopping simply means that you change the distribution you are using. You do this by installing another linux distribution of your choice, is that simple. There's nothing complicated about it.
Distro-hopping is something people do when they are looking for a version of Linux that suits them. It means trying out new distributions of linux for extended periods of time, as opposed to just running them in a virtual machine or straight off a live CD/USB.
If you want to do full installs of each distro you try, I would recommend partitioning your hard drive in such a way that you do not lose your data each time. The simplest way to do this is to create a partition for storage. Say you have a 500GB HDD. Use gParted to split that into two, one being maybe 100GB and the other being 400GB. Each time you install a distro, place it on the 100GB partition.
Alternatively, you can create a separate home partition which you can use every time you install a new distro, but that can sometimes be a little more complex.
It's a figure of speech, no tutorial exists really.
- Install a virtual machine on your current operating system.
- Download the Linux distributions you want to test (Fedora, Debian, Arch, Gentoo, etc).
- Power the virtual machine using desired distribution (this probably requires a tutorial depending on which virtual machine you use).
- Repeat previous step with different distributions to find your favourite.
The term distro-hopping has historically meant, installing a linux distro onto bare metal for a short period of time, at which point said distro is nuked and another distro is installed ad infinitum.
The idea is that eventually one will find a distro that they are comfortable enough to use as a "daily-driver".
As A5H points out, a Virtual Machine platform is the logical approach when experimenting with different distros. A caveat when installing an operating system in a VM is memory optimization/system overhead, as your mileage will differ exponentially depending on hardware/software setup as compared with a bare metal installation.
In other words, to get an idea of how a distro will perform with your hardware and software requirements, you will need to do a bare metal install.
I am forever doing this, problem with this is if you use an SSD you will damage it in a sense, as in wearing it down due to writes, although modern SSDs can take the hits, my 840 evos do this perfectly.
But as outlined it is just jumping between distros so the user gets a broader sense of what each is in the hope of finding their distro, this can take longer than others though, as always milage may vary.
Ive found this (distro-hopping) kind of useful. Defiantly has taught me a lot about Linux. Currently have Windows 7 and Back-box Linux dual booted, and Blackbuntu-Debian on my laptop.
Life will be easier if you you run the different installs off an usb stick untill you find one you really want to install... Not much advise but I´m really just posting to see how well ELinks works with the forum. (I´m trying out a command line only web browser)