Main Features

PorteuX is unique in many ways; not just a repackaging of programs on top of Slackware. Here are some of the highlights PorteuX has to offer:

1. Lightweight and slim: The ISOs are small (~600 MB), including the most recent kernel and desktop environments (Cinnamon, COSMIC, GNOME, KDE, LXDE, LXQt, MATE, and Xfce). The after-boot RAM consumption is also optimized.

2. Lightning fast: It runs in live session and uses zstd compression, among many other optimizations, making it able to boot up in 3 seconds. It's hard to find an experience as snappy as PorteuX. Even Clear Linux (RIP) or CachyOS can't keep up in benchmarks like Geekbench, Speedometer, and Unigine Superposition, to name just a few.

3. Modular: It's composed of just five main modules (000-kernel, 001-core, 002-gui, 002-xtra and 003-desktopEnvironment). It means you can try a different desktop environment by simply changing one file, and the system will remain clean; no contamination from other desktop environment files or toolkits. You can also remove all modules except the kernel and core for a terminal-only experience with internet access.

4. Immutable by design: Since these modules are read-only, the system can be made immutable if desired, improving privacy, being malware-proof and keeping the system always fresh. However, if you want, there are several ways to save your sessions: automatic saving, a .dat container, module saving, or scripted copies.

5. Download and load modules instantaneously: Additional modules can be downloaded from PorteuX App Store, and thanks to their design, you can load or unload an application module in literally less than a second.

6. Reversible updates: Thanks to its modular nature, reverting an update is as simple as moving or renaming the current modules and copying in the older versions.

7. Portable: There's no installation process, so you can simply copy the ISO content to any storage unit (including but not limited to USB sticks) and plug it into any computer. Your system and settings will be right there, without needing any additional setup. It's truly plug and play. For better performance though it's recommended to use it on a SSD or NVMe.

8. Comprehensive multimedia support: PorteuX can open basically any multimedia file out of the box and will automatically enable hardware acceleration if your machine supports it.

9. Vulkan out of the box: Enabling OpenCL is also very simple, as described in the README on Github page. There's even a developer module that makes building things easy.

10. Open-source and free: No ads, no pop-ups, no telemetry, no bullshit. You can easily build it from scratch!

11. Short release cycles: PorteuX is released every 2 months, so users can enjoy the latest security updates and new features.

12. Bleeding edge: Unlike some lightweight distros that ship ancient kernels and packages (sometimes not even a proper desktop environment), PorteuX delivers what's most recent on Linux in a pleasant experience.

13. Versatile and powerful: Thanks to its unique cheatcodes, PorteuX allows you to easily enable/disable or modify specific features, start it from a specific location, load additional modules, and much more.

14. Easily customizable boot menu: You can easily add/remove options in the boot menu, allowing you to create different profiles for specific use cases. The default entries are already very handy, including Always Fresh, which works similarly to Safe Mode but restores absolutely everything to the system’s defaults.

15. Handy in-house applications: PorteuX includes straightforward in-house tools that make it easy to change settings that are often tricky to modify, such as the CPU power profile, timezone, user password, language, and more.