The title says it all, I'd like to switch my operating system and preserve most of my files. Any other info I should know before the move would be nice as well.
To do this one could install the new distro on a new partition, boot to it, delete everything from the old installation except the hone directory, move your user to the base directory (/home/sorrybookbroke -> /sorrybookbroke) before editing your /etc/fstab and mounting the old partition to /home
This way, no external drive is needed like @Luci@lemmy.ca suggested. Of course, their suggestion is the easiest, but this is the one I personally chose.