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.
Porteus appears to be a completely different deal than a regular distro you install - it works with the requirement of being portable and meant to live on a USB stick where you probably want to share the space with FAT32/NTFS/exFAT for file transfer as well and generally being able to just plug it into any computer. It probably has a bootloader configured with the expectation of a FAT32 filesystem with the persistence file living on it.
Most installed distros will be perfectly happy with ext4 - it’s not a filesystem problem it’s a how it boots problem. You’ll probably find that most distros that are not designed for portability/running on a USB stick will have no problems with ext4 at all.
If you want a portable distro on a USB stick that’s installed properly, you can partition the USB stick to have a FAT32/NTFS/exFAT for storing files and another partition for the distro itself. Generally, distros want a partition dedicated to it or things quickly start conflicting and gets weird. If you want many distros without wasting space, you’ll probably need to do a fair bit of manual setup but you could make use btrfs and use btrfs subvolumes, so only the actually used space is used. You can even make a shared home directory with that kind of setup and be perfectly space-efficient!
I mean, I’m just looking for a Linux distro that can boot and load apps faster than Ubuntu. The only reason I had Porteus was because I had it for a reason that I don’t remember and it’s considered a lightweight Linux distro. I’m currently trying Absolute Linux because I was told that I’d be better off with a non-portable Linux distro, but it’s taking forever to download.
Well, I tried Absolute Linux (which is a non-portable Linux distro) and I’m having the same issue as porteus. It boots fine from fat32 but wont boot at all from ext4. I think I’m going to just continue using Ubuntu for the time being. Even if it is slow and unstable on rare occasions, it works and I don’t have to spend hours trying to troubleshoot issues that probably aren’t documented anywhere.