I agree that it's a simple matter to do reinstalls. Compared to the time and effort it took to install Red Hat and SUSE all those years ago, most distros of today are a cinch. I'm not sure I'll need to do a reinstall on that extra laptop I have Devuan running on now. It's kind of refreshing to see just how close a distro is to what I want and need. I'm used to doing the install, then spending a few hours deleting, removing, adding, tweaking, etc, etc, etc. While I did do some of that with the Devuan install, it was nowhere nearly as much as I usually do.

I'm also looking forward to not having to struggle with upgrades as they are released. The last time I attempted that ended as a disaster and I had to do a complete install anyway. Hopefully I won't have that problem with Devuan. It's not a major undertaking to do a fresh install, but it sure would be nice to just upgrade.

I think it was 1996 when I first installed Red Hat, then SUSE followed a year or so later, and I eventually settled on Mandrake. There was nothing easy about installing those releases back then. I remember running PCLOS for quite a few years, then started in with Ubuntu and Mint and a whole lot of derivatives of those two.

Yeah, I probably SHOULD do the installs from a different install ISO, but right now I've just got too many different things eating time and taking my attention. And, like I said before, I've just kind of lost my appetite for trying new stuff and teaching myself new things. If I hadn't been so irritated with the distro I have been running for a few years I probably would never even have tried Devuan. BB King said it best when he sang, "The Thrill Is Gone". LOL! That pretty much sums up my current outlook on trying new stuff. I hate to admit it, but I've become one of those guys that just wants his distro to install easily and be mostly ready for use right out of the gate. Fortunately, Devuan is really close to being perfect for me right out of the box. I do make a few tweaks and remove a few things and then add a few things, but it's really close to being just fine with the default Live install. Maybe if I can get some of these other projects knocked out I'll have the time and energy to try doing an install from one of the other ISOs.

OK. I think I'm following what you guys are all saying. It sounds like I'll either have to choose a different installation type or I'll have to do the backup and restore when I do an install. I'm guessing I'll probably end up just doing the backup/restore thing. I spent over 30 years screwing with computers in one way or another. I'm older now and I guess I'm just burnt out on diving into problems and spending lots of time and effort. That sounds like a cop out, but after starting with COBOL and FORTRAN, then onto DOS, all the various Windows releases, and then just a little Linux as I've gone along, I'm just kind of tired of devoting too much time to learning new ways to do things on a computer.

The bottom line is that I do still like what I'm seeing with Devuan and I'm now certain I'll install it on all my computers. I'll just get there a little differently than the normal way. Thanks to all you guys for answering my question.