How do you edit porteus.cfg?

[bread]

So I was using the Make-changes program (using the porteus system center) and after making a savefile, it told me to edit the APPEND LINE with: changes=/dev/save.dat, but when I tried to save it, it told be that it was read-only, and on top of that, it tells me the the entire file system is read-only? Any solutions?

[Ed_P]

Hello bread, welcome to the forum.

When you go to the /boot/syslinux folder right click in the folder's window and click on Open as Root. A new window will open for /boot/syslinux. In the new window right click on porteus.cfg and edit it. When you close the edit the updated file will be saved.

The password for root is shown on the Porteus boot menu.

Which ISO did you download?

[fulalas]

If you copied the ISO using a program like Rufus or Etcher, the whole partition will be read-only, which is not recommended.

We recommend formatting the USB stick as EXT4 (or NTFS for more compatibility) and using /boot/Porteus-installer-for-Linux.com to make the unit bootable.

[gomway]

If you are using windows alongside porteus (as obvious from the .dat file), make sure you shutdown windows properly. Linux systems loose ability to read-write on NTFS partitions and become read-only when windows is not shut down properly. Solution, shutdown or reboot from windows first.

[Ed_P]

We recommend formatting the USB stick as EXT4 (or NTFS for more compatibility)

I certainly don't. For compatibility with other systems, including EFI systems, I recommend FAT32. NTFS is a journaling system and adds wear to USB drives in addition to slowing writes to them.

If you copied the ISO using a program like Rufus or Etcher, the whole partition will be read-only,

Wow! Good to know.

[fulalas]

@Ed_P, if one needs EFI, you're right. However, FAT32 has no support to symlinks, which is a big drawback. I use NTFS myself because it can be read by any OS and it has symlink support. I use nvme and SSDs so performance is not an issue, if that's a real concern regarding NTFS.

[Ed_P]

I use nvme and SSDs so performance is not an issue, if that's a real concern regarding NTFS.

The speed thing is a USB issue. NTFS is designed for machine installed hardrives.

[fulalas]

Don't think using a decent USB stick formatted as NTFS would be a problem.

And, actually, what I said in my last post is not entirely accurate because you can have the first partition as FAT for the EFI to work, and the second partition (with the actual system) as NTFS

[Ed_P]

All my bootable USB drives are FAT32 and none are larger than 32GB.

Multiple partitions on a USB drive is a problem for Windows in that it only supports a single partition on removable drives so sharing files is ackward between OSs.

One of these days I want to try booting a exFAT formatted USB drive on my UEFI machine. UEFI supporting exFAT would eliminate problems with files larger than 4GB and 32GB limitations on my USB drives.

Would a USB drive with porteus or porteux installed on a FAT32 partition work if there was a 2nd partition formatted as ext4 or NTFS for the /changes folder? Not much use for a Windows system to access the USB's /changes files.

[fulalas]

Would a USB drive with porteus or porteux installed on a FAT32 partition work if there was a 2nd partition formatted as ext4 or NTFS for the /changes folder? Not much use for a Windows system to access the USB's /changes files.

Yes. And with NTFS you have support to symlinks, something that on FAT (including exFAT) is not possible.

[Rava]

I use NTFS myself because it can be read by any OS and it has symlink support.

Not that nowadays it should matter much, but when you use windoze XP to create a NTFS file system, it is an older version of NTFS that doesn't support symlinks.

Added in 2 minutes 16 seconds:

Don't think using a decent USB stick formatted as NTFS would be a problem.

This is my external boot medium for porteus and other Linux.

Code: Select all

root@porteus:~# fdisk -l /dev/sdc
Disk /dev/sdc: 1.84 GiB, 1977614336 bytes, 3862528 sectors
Disk model: STORAGE DEVICE  
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x8blabla

Device     Boot Start     End Sectors  Size Id Type
/dev/sdc1  *      135 3862527 3862393  1.8G 83 Linux

the file system is ext2.
works fine with a BIOS system, might not work with an UEFI system. (Currently I do not own a single UEFI system so I cannot do any tests)

I only use a journaling FS on harddrives, I not use one on thumbdrives or SD cards.