Latest release direct link: https://github.com/porteux/porteux/releases/latest

Or at Slackware.uk mirror: https://slackware.uk/porteux/

PorteuX is a Linux distro based on Slackware, inspired by Slax and Porteus and available to the public for free under GPL. Its main goal is to be super fast, small, portable, modular and immutable (if the user wants so).

It's unique in many ways; not just a repackaging of programs on top of Slackware. For a list of its highlights, access the Main Features wiki page.

It's already pre-configured for basic usage, including lightweight applications for each of the 8 desktop environments available. No browser is included, but an App Store is provided so you can download the most popular browsers, as well as Steam, VirtualBox, NVIDIA drivers, Wine, office suite, multilib (32-bit compatibility), messengers, emulators, etc.

Out of the box, PorteuX can open basically any multimedia file. Hardware acceleration is enabled by default for machines with Intel, AMD or NVIDIA cards (for NVIDIA cards it's required to download the driver from the App Store).

PorteuX is based on Slackware 64-bit current/rolling (bleeding edge). The ISOs are available in 8 spins:
. Cinnamon
. COSMIC
. GNOME
. KDE
. LXDE
. LXQt
. MATE
. Xfce

PorteuX is a modular system so it doesn't require a normal setup/installer. You can simply copy the ISO content to your media storage and run from the boot folder either porteux-installer-for-linux.run or porteux-installer-for-windows.exe (depending on which system you're running) to make the unit bootable. It's that simple. Please avoid ISO installer applications like Rufus or Etcher because by default they set the bootable unit to be read-only. More details can be found in the /boot/docs/install.txt file in the ISO.

To use PorteuX in a language other than English, download the multilanguage package and use the PorteuX Language Switcher application to choose the desired language.

To read Asian characters, download and activate the notoserifcjk-regular.xzm module. Some PDFs may also require poppler-data package, which can be downloaded via getpkg command (e.g. getpkg -m poppler-data).

To run Windows applications inside PorteuX, you can find both Wine and Multilib Lite XZM modules in the App Store. It's recommended to have these 2 modules in /porteux/optional and activate them only when needed.

To install new applications that are not in the App Store or in the Slackware repository, AppImage format is recommended. If an application is not available in AppImage, Flatpak is available by default and can be used to download and install any software available in Flatpak repositories.

To download a Slackware package that is not present in PorteuX and convert it to a XZM module, run the command getpkg -m [packageName] (e.g. getpkg -m gimp). After the XZM module is created, double-click or call activate [moduleName] to activate it. It's recommended to move the module to the porteux/modules folder to ensure it is automatically loaded after boot.

To build anything inside PorteuX, it's recommended to download and activate the 05-devel XZM module, which includes compilers, git, make, headers, etc. To build a driver (e.g. VirtualBox or any physical device), also download and activate the 06-crippled-sources XZM module.

username: guest
password: guest

username: root
password: toor

PorteuX is lightweight and snappy. Although it can run on old machines (as long as they support SSE4.2), it is on high-end machines that the user will experience everything PorteuX can offer in terms of performance. The ISOs are small, and RAM consumption is highly optimized.

For better performance, it's recommended to have PorteuX installed on an SSD/NVMe storage unit instead of a USB flash drive, or to select the 'Copy To RAM' option in the boot menu. The latter will result in a slower boot time, but after booting the system will run 100% in RAM, which is the fastest way possible.

Boot times are really fast. LXQt, for instance, can boot in only 3 seconds:

https://youtu.be/DJd38Nch6rQ

CachyOS, considered the fastest Linux distro, is slower than PorteuX in Geekbench 6:

Sources: CachyOS-260308PorteuX2.7

All this performance benefit is achieved without providing ancient software. This means that the kernel, desktop environments and packages are usually as new as possible.

In the terminal, run the following commands:

1. cd $PORTDIR/modules
   
2. sudo getpkg -m libclc llvm mesa spirv-llvm-translator vulkan-sdk
   
3. sudo activate -q libclc*.xzm llvm*.xzm mesa*.xzm spirv-llvm-translator*.xzm vulkan-sdk*.xzm
   

This only needs to be done once, as these modules will be activated automatically every time the machine boots.

PorteuX can be built in a live session of Slackware 64-bit or PorteuX 64-bit. At the moment, the main scripts do not generate ISOs, but only the XZM files for each module (000-kernel, 001-core, 002-gui, 002-xtra, 003-desktop-environment, etc).

To build PorteuX, run the create-module.sh script as root, in the exact folder order as described:

1. 000-kernel
   
2. 001-core
   
3. 002-gui
   
4. 002-xtra
   
5. 003-desktop-environment (where 'desktop-environment' is your preferred environment, like 003-lxde)
   
6. (optional) 05-devel
   
7. (optional) 08-multilanguage
   
8. (optional) 0050-multilib-lite
   

At the end, all modules will be in their respective subfolders inside /tmp/porteux-builder-[version].

Feel free to report any issues or request changes. Any constructive feedback is welcome.

Please consider donating to the PorteuX project:

https://paypal.me/porteux
https://buymeacoffee.com/porteux

arleson (core team)
theUtopian (core team)
blaze (@porteus)
brokenman (@porteus)
darren tadgy (@slackware.uk)
nater1983 (@gfs)
ncmprhnsbl (@porteus)
neko (@porteus)
patrick volkerding (@slackware)
phantom (@porteus)
tomas matejicek (@slax)