Even without BTRFS it is possible to just delete every folder on root except for /home. Haven't encountered any distros that couldn't handle it.
this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2025
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Don't format, just create separate subvolumes for the distros and keep the home subvolume mounted on each root then delete the root subvolume of the distros you don't want when you're done with them.
This looks like the way, I like it!
If you format the btrfs partition, it will erase everything. You can just delete the old root subvolume and create a new one when installing a different distro though.
I do the this and it's great. An entire distro takes up only a few GB. Many graphical installers don't support installing on an existing btrfs partition (or subvolume) and want to create a new one. This can often be solved by manual intervention (via terminal).
You are replacing partitions with subvolumes, as such you have to make these operations on the btrfs filesystem (so as others have already written, deleting the subvolume instead of re-formatting the partition).
Make a separate home partition, and make fs BTRFS, having subvolune of root system may be tricky for formatting
Just dont format the drive when installing a new distro. BTRFS or not you can delete the system folders manually first if needed but I believe that some if not all distros will delete the system folders for you (at least ubuntu used to do this last I tried). And if not you can do it manually.
It does not matter if you have a separate partition or not for /home installers won't touch it if it already exists except to create a new user if needed. Remember, all the installers do is optionally format the drives, mount them then install files into those drives. If you skip the formatting and manually do that partitioning (or using an existing partition layout) it will still mount and write to the same places regardless of it they are separate partitions or not. So a separate partition does not add any extra protection to your home files at all.
But regardless of what you do you should ALWAYS backup your home data anyway. Even with separate partitions or subvolumes the installer can touch or delete anything it wants to and you can easily click the wrong button or accidentally wipe thing. At most preserving your home saves you from restoring from a backup it should not be done instead of backup.