Porteus

Hello all,

Is there such a thing with Porteus? I mean, to install Porteus to a hard drive and it saves all configuration changes and downloaded files by default. I've read about using persistence with a usb drive but I just want a regular desktop experience with Porteus. I just found it and I really like it. Please don't tell me I can't use it like this.

Welcome to Porteus. Except for testing all I ever use is hard drive. Run from iso copying all to ram, subsequently running in ram. Used to use persistence but no longer find the need to do so, The experts in persistence will surely come along and clue you up in the right direction.

Thank you for responding.

Welcome Phineas!

Do you have some previous linux experience? Do you already have a bootloader on your hdd? Do you already have a linux partition?
Or all you have already is a windows installation.

Best option would be to think about creating a linux partition on the hdd.

Installing porteus on a usb with a linux filesystem (ext4) will provide the same experience as being on hdd and will permit familiarisation with the process of the hdd install.

Thanks.

Yes you can use persistence.

Please read the cheatcodes document in the docs folder of the ISO. Look in particular for the changes= cheatcode. You can point this to a partition on your fixed hard drive if you choose.

After entering the cheat code, will saving happen automatically without manually saving to the save file?

francois: I have some experience with Linux (before the days of systemd). I installed Porteus to an empty hard drive. It is now on that hard drive, with bootloader, but not saving like I would like.

I have no problem re-installing it with whatever options are necessary if need be.

With the kde desktop yes. With the xfce desktop, you will have to change the settings to save desktop changes. From what I know lxqt and mate will not save changes. Which desktop and file system do you intend to use?

Doh! I am using the lxqt edition with ext4.

Is Mate or Xfce light on resources? I know KDE isn't.

Hi Phineas
IMHO, XFCE is the best one
regarding persistence:
If installed on a linux filesystem no save.dat file is needed.
Look at /boot/syslinux/porteus.cfg in a text editor, scroll down to the first
APPEND Line.you should see a changes entry like this one:
APPEND initrd=initrd.xz changes=/porteus
If so, all is well and you should have a /porteus/changes folder, in which all the
changes you make will go in.

(If you created a save FILE you have to add it to the "changes" path and reboot,
but as i said you don't need one if you use a linux filesystem)

I'll try that, Donald. Thank you for the info!

UPDATE: The XFCE edition definitely did the trick. Thank you very much!