The Linux Ship of Theseus
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pick any distro and install it.
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Then, without installing another distro over the top of it, slowly convert it into another distro by replacing package managers, installed packages, and configurations.
System must be usable and fully native to the new distro (all old packages replaced with new ones).
No flatpaks, avoid snaps where physically possible, native packages only.
EDIT: Some clarification on some of the clever tools brought up here:
chroot, dd, debootstrap, and partition editors that allow you to install the new system in an empty container or blanket-overwrite the old system go against the spirit of this challenge.
These are very useful and valid tools under a normal context and I strongly recommend learning them.
You can use them if you prefer, but The ship of Theseus was replaced one board at a time. We are trying to avoid dropping a new ship in the harbor and tugging the old one out.
It may however be a good idea to use them to test out the target system in a safe environment as you perform the migration back in the real root, so you have a reference to go by.
Easy: pick two similar distros, such as Ubuntu and Debian or Manjaro and Arch and go from the base to the derivative.
Medium: Same as easy but go from the derivative to the base.
Hard: Pick two disparate distros like Debian and Artix and go from one to the other.
Nightmare: Make a self-compiled distro your target.
Love the idea of the challenge, my issue would be lack of a validator tool to confirm I’d completed the challenge - any suggestions?
After completing the challenge and making sure your system is usable and can survive a reboot:
If you’ve kept the old package manager, search for installed packages and make sure that the package manager itself is the only thing left. Then delete it.
You use the new franken system to do an update to the new version of that distro’s flavour without bricking the system.