I’m currently using Ubuntu and I want try a different distro because I have an older computer and Ubuntu is pretty slow. So far the only one I’ve tried was Porteus and while it does boot and load apps very quickly I had an issue where Porteus wouldn’t boot if it was installed on top of ext4 but would boot fine if it was installed on top of fat32, which is also another potential problem because Porteus requires a save file for persistence when using Windows filesystems. If there is a problem where my computer can’t boot with an ext4 filesystem, Ubuntu doesn’t have this problem because sda1/2/3 all use a different filesystem.
If I’m correct on this, would I be better off trying Porteus on ext3/2 and hoping it works or just use it with fat32 and have a separate partition formatted for ext4 to serve the same purpose as sda3 in Ubuntu and possibly store the save file (if I have the correct understanding of how save files work).
Also, I would just use NTFS but not only have I heard that it has issues with Linux, I’ve had issues using it with Linux, so I’m using fat32 for stability.
Sounds like just a boot partition issue. you can set up a separate boot vs root vs home on pretty much all distros
Ok but that doesn’t answer my question. Should I use ext3/2 as the boot partition or fat32?
You want a fat partition for boot,the rest can be whatever file system suits you
The problem is that I can’t do that, when it installs it completely reformats the drive to ext4 and doesn’t give me the option for anything else.
Boot-partition is always fat32. Using ext4 for root-partition will give you the most speed what a filesystem can. It is way faster than NTFS.
Your issues sounds like a hardware problem. How much ram do you have? A minimun of 8 gb is a must. Do you have a ssd storage?
Ext4/3/2 should be fine for /boot with most bootloader (it’s best to skim their docs for filesystem compatibility). If you’re booting UEFI, you’ll still need a FAT32 /boot/efi (or wherever you want to put the efi partition).
I wasn’t asking if Linux could boot with ext3/2, I was asking which one was better for booting but it looks like you unintentionally answered that anyways because my computers bios only boot through UEFI.
You shouldn’t use fat32 for /boot unless there’s no other choice. Use ext2 for /boot if all you care about is speed. You lose journaling and probably other features, but you don’t pay the performance penalty, either.