this post was submitted on 06 Dec 2025
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Never in my life have I needed to reimage any Linux machine, but I have had to reimage many, many, many windows machines and quite a few Apple devices too. I have a long career in IT (and even before that, I've been building computers since I was 12), so my sample size consists of thousands of computers going back decades.
I've only ever reimaged Linux systems when I felt like distro hopping for fun. Maybe I've just been lucky, but I think it's probably more to do with the fact that Linux tends to be extremely reliable once you have it set up (unless you manage to break it, but even then there are usually multiple ways to fix it without reimaging).
I went from an Ubuntu 16.04 install all the way to 20.04 and they involved multiple hardware upgrades and a completely new system at one point, just swapped out the root/home drive.
Since then I've been on EndeavourOS with pretty much the same story.
With Windows 7 and 10 I had to constantly reinstall.
same!… heck work updated my laptop from win10 to 11 and now the "Windows App" won't run… IT dude gave up trying to fix it and order a swap
This is a laptop used, at most once a week, for regular office bs and it basically self destroyed just through windose updates
Same here (except I'm 35 years into being a tech hobbyist, not a professional), and I've never reimaged a Linux install (except to try imaging it and learn how it works). Having been exclusively on Linux for 9 years now (playing with it for over 20 years) and Fedora the last 6, I can confidently say that it's easier to just keep your important files in a separate drive (home directory in its own drive for example) and just reinstall whatever you want if you end up breaking your OS. Reimaging seems way more convoluted.