Installing One Distribution Over Another

When I upgraded Fedora 23 to 24, the upgrade hung for some reason and bricked my Linux box. I was surprised that they have no facility for fixing this, but that's OK because I backed up all my important data beforehand. But, that being said, I'd still like to not have to reinstall all my software and reconfigure all my software and settings. Is there a way to Install Ubuntu over the Fedora one and preserve any of these things?

Thanks for your help.

Better to install Ubuntu and reinstall your apps.

Cheers.