Some newbie questions

[rych]

how do you understand which module a given program you are using is in

All the activated modules are mounted as subfolders under /mnt/live/memory/images so you can browse/search through that folder, for example:

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ls -d /mnt/live/memory/images/vlc*
/mnt/live/memory/images/vlc-3.0.20-x86_64-1-fixed.xzm/

Of course, pkginfo reads other meta info too, for example that version of vlc module was based on the original ponce package, and so on.

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pkginfo -w vlc
 Package:  vlc-3.0.20-x86_64-1ponce  
 located in Module:  vlc-3.0.20-x86_64-1-fixed.xzm 

[vinnie]

in the end I only need to boot once in "always fresh" mode to reset everything, right?

not exactly it boot you into a "fresh"(unpolluted) porteus but it doesn't automatically clean up any mess you might have made.
"mess you might have made" could be a bad or corrupted module or some calamity that's present in the changes folder or container or rootcopy..
for more understanding of the boot options see: <media>/boot/syslinux/porteus.cfg > the APPEND lines and <media>/boot/docs/cheatcodes.txt

Ok, thanks, and if I after doing a boot with "always fresh" mode and delete the directory "/mnt/sdb2/porteus/changes/", it can work or do I risk blowing everything up?
.

If you ever decide to enable it though, for UEFI booting...

thanks for the suggestion, I will take note, although I hope that uefi can be disabled in all the computers that will end up in my hands
.

All the activated modules are mounted as subfolders under /mnt/live/memory/images so you can browse/search through that folder, for example:

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ls -d /mnt/live/memory/images/vlc*
/mnt/live/memory/images/vlc-3.0.20-x86_64-1-fixed.xzm/

Usefull too to know.

[Ed_P]

Ok, thanks, and if I after doing a boot with "always fresh" mode and delete the directory "/mnt/sdb2/porteus/changes/", it can work or do I risk blowing everything up?

You don't need to delete the /porteus/changes/ folder, just the save.dat file in it to remove your tweaks/changes to the system.

I use 4 boot options:

1. Boot just the ISO files, /porteus/boot/. The Always Fresh boot.
2. Boot with the ISO files, /porteus/boot/ & /porteus/modules/. The Always Fresh plus Modules boot.
3. Boot with the ISO files, /porteus/base/ & /porteus/modules, & a module version of my changes. My fully functional Safe mode boot.
4. Boot with the ISO files, /porteus/base/ & /porteus/modules, & /porteus/changes/save.dat file, without my changes module. My fully functional Updatable boot.

A couple of ways to make a module version of my changes, the easiest being to copy the /porteus/changes/save.dat to the /porteus/modules folder as save.dat.xzm. Yes, it's that simple.

Added in 12 minutes 45 seconds:
Oh! You're not using a save.dat file. On a .ext2 drive I'm not sure how changes are saved. I've never used that format. Sorry.

But I believe porteus changes are stored in the /porteus/changes folder so to start fresh deleting all the files in the /porteus/changes/ folder should be sufficient.

[rych]

after doing a boot with "always fresh" mode and delete the directory "/mnt/sdb2/porteus/changes/", it can work

Yes. Maybe rename that folder /changes to /changesOLD just in case you want to reintroduce those changes on a subsequent reboot. After all, that's the advantage of USB portable persistent Linux. And yes, the /changes is just a sub-folder if you can afford to have an ext4 partition. Ed_P and others who can only use NTFS or exFAT encapsulate and store all their (linux) changes inside one huge save.dat file -- doesn't apply in your case.

[vinnie]

Oh! You're not using a save.dat file.

I am not sure but yes, I think I read that if the partition is ext the default behavior is to save the files directly, instead if it is fat the default is the creation of save.dat (I think the problem is that you cannot manage permissions in the m$ filesystem).
However I will definitely want to try the save.dat later as well so your explanations are welcome. To your knowledge is there any way to manage what to include and exclude from the save.dat?
.

Yes. Maybe rename that folder /changes to /changesOLD just in case you want to reintroduce those changes on a subsequent reboot. After all, that's the advantage of USB portable persistent Linux.

Thanks again for the suggestions.
I'll let you in on another secret, I decided to put porteus in the internal disk, not in a usb disk. It sounds strange however at the end of the day I decided that porteus somehow manages to be a hybrid between a live linux and a regular distro quite transparently.
I want to use it as a fallback to have a distro that even though it is standard retains the characteristics of an immutable distro.

[rych]

if the partition is ext the default behavior is to save the files directly, instead if it is fat the default is the creation of save.dat

That's right. I haven't heard anyone using save.dat as an additional level of encapsulating if they have a native linux ext4 partition?!

I decided to put porteus in the internal disk, not in a usb disk. It sounds strange however at the end of the day I decided that porteus somehow manages to be a hybrid between a live linux and a regular distro quite transparently.

Oh, me too. Do take a look at my internal disk installation, aka frugal, here [HOWTO] Multiboot Windows and frugal Porteus/X and my praise/advocacy for it here: Wonderful distribution

Except there I also describe how to double boot to Windows installed on the same internal disk. In your case, you'd be double booting into another Linux distro? Simple make and copy files into a /porteus root folder on your existing ext4 partition: Porteus will find that folder automagically as it boots, will activate all the modules from /porteus/base etc. and will save changes into /porteus/changes (if you use changes=/porteus in your boot parameters of course)

is there any way to manage what to include and exclude

...furthermore if you instead add changes=EXIT:/porteus then the changes will be saved on EXIT and only those specified in /etc/changes-exit.conf. (Similarly for safe.dat I think, but Ed_P knows better about that)

Also, since we now have Porteus and PorteuX all the above applies to either and one can have both of them installed, meaning there are two folders next to one another on the ext4:

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/mnt/sda5/porteus
/mnt/sda5/porteux

so actually I have 3 operating systems "installed" on my internal disk: Win11, and Porteus/X

[vinnie]

For now my situation is very simple, although i have many partitions only porteus is at this time installed on the hd of my computer.
I have set up a couple of other partitions but right now I am just throwing files into them.
The other distro I am still using is alpine but I keep it on a sd card, alpine is discreetly less accessible than porteus so I prefer to have porteus always ready.
If I ever had to choose a non-portable distro I think I would currently take void linux, my range of distros shrinks a lot because I don't like systemd either.
However of all the information you gave me this is exactly "wow":

...furthermore if you instead add changes=EXIT:/porteus then the changes will be saved on EXIT and only those specified in /etc/changes-exit.conf. (Similarly for safe.dat I think, but Ed_P knows better about that)

In this case porteus can function as a normal system by allowing only important things to be backed up.
The only question I have is, in the file it talks about folders, but by chance is it possible to specify individual files instead?

[rych]

allowing only important things to be backed up

In this case the session changes live in the RAM (or swap?) (and are written to the disk at shutdown unless interrupted) ... which are mounted at

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/mnt/live/memory/changes

I suspect it had better not grow into GBs then, right? I sometimes check it and notice a lot of rather heavy junk in my changes, so I delete it by hand, and exclude it in the /etc/changes-exit.conf

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/bin
/etc
#/home
/lib
/lib64
/opt
/root
/sbin
/usr
/var
!/var/run
!/var/tmp
!/var/cache
!/root/.cache
!/root/.local/share/TelegramDesktop/tdata/emoji
!/root/.local/share/TelegramDesktop/tdata/user_data/cache
!/root/.local/share/TelegramDesktop/tdata/user_data/media_cache
!/root/.local/share/TelegramDesktop/tupdates
!/root/.pfilesearch
!/root/.mozilla/firefox/FirefoxProfile
!/root/.waterfox/WaterfoxProfile
!/root/.config/google-chrome
!/root/.config/chromium-ungoogled
!/.cache
!/root/.Mathematica
!/var/lib/sbopkg/SBo

is it possible to specify individual files

I hope someone could please answer that. I've never needed such a fine granularity. But would be nice. I hope it's possible?

[vinnie]

I will definitely try it when I have more mastery with porteus, it is a feature that I used (and abused) a lot in alpine, until I found a bug that until now has never been fixed like 5 years.