{"slug": "porteus", "name": "Porteus", "category": "os", "category_name": "Operating systems and desktop", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 4, "warners": 0, "score": 3.483, "rising": -1.31, "first": "2025-12-13", "latest": "2026-06-30", "why": "There's also Porteus, also a Slackware derivative offering KDE Plasma", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 0, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "There's also Porteus, also a Slackware derivative offering KDE Plasma", "kind": "", "icon": true, "domain": "porteus.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.porteus.org", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["Porteus"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 779863424, "item_id": 48741464, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48741464", "by": "akoboldfrying", "date": "2026-06-30", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "if I could make it to the console tty it worked like a charm!", "excerpt": "I used a Porteus boot USB a couple of years ago to rescue the secondary hard drive on my Dad's ancient Windows 7 PC. The drive had partially died, making it inaccessible under Windows -- but 99% of the disk was still readable with Linux's NTFS support. There was some glitch that caused the GUI to lock up shortly after booting about 80% of the time, but if I could make it to the console tty it worked like a charm!", "context": "", "use_case": "rescuing data from a dead drive", "switched_from": "", "story": "Knoppix"}, {"id": 779861041, "item_id": 48741315, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48741315", "by": "garkotipankaj", "date": "2026-06-30", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I discovered Porteus (based on slackware) and used it from a 8gb sandisk usb for years.", "excerpt": "Same story! I discovered Porteus (based on slackware) and used it from a 8gb sandisk usb for years. It shipped with xfce and was a blast to tinker with. I learned to compile software from source for it because the package management was non-existent. Taught me a lot. AAAND it's still live: https://www.porteus.org", "context": "", "use_case": "Portable Linux live system", "switched_from": "", "story": "Knoppix"}, {"id": 740469217, "item_id": 46279326, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46279326", "by": "isr", "date": "2025-12-15", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Porteus (or the more bleeding edge Porteux variant)", "excerpt": "There are many which could fit your description. Tiny core, puppy linux varients (voidpup, with the void pkg manager, is pretty nice), etc. However, I think the nicest put together ones are fatdog64 & porteus. fatdog64 is built from scratch (basically, \"Beyond Linux From Scratch\"), but uses a lot of slackware tooling & ethos, so its quite compatible with slack pkgs & slackbuilds. If you dive deeper, its actually got ", "context": "", "use_case": "Live RAM-based Linux distro", "switched_from": "", "story": "Finnix"}, {"id": 740086385, "item_id": 46255399, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46255399", "by": "sombragris", "date": "2025-12-13", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "There's also Porteus, also a Slackware derivative offering KDE Plasma", "excerpt": "I used it sometimes when I needed a live Linux, and I liked it, because it used to be based in Slackware, and it had KDE as its desktop. Now they added Debian as another base, and that's great. Sadly, they dropped KDE. There's also Porteus, also a Slackware derivative offering KDE Plasma -- https://www.porteus.org Slax was and still is a great live distribution. The fact that (at least one of its flavors) is based on", "context": "", "use_case": "live Linux with KDE", "switched_from": "", "story": "Slax: Live Pocket Linux"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["rescuing data from a dead drive", "portable linux live system", "live ram-based linux distro", "live linux with kde"], "compared": [], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48732056", "title": "Knoppix", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46189011", "title": "Finnix", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46191449", "title": "Slax: Live Pocket Linux", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 779863424, "item_id": 48741464, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48741464", "by": "akoboldfrying", "date": "2026-06-30", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "if I could make it to the console tty it worked like a charm!", "excerpt": "I used a Porteus boot USB a couple of years ago to rescue the secondary hard drive on my Dad's ancient Windows 7 PC. The drive had partially died, making it inaccessible under Windows -- but 99% of the disk was still readable with Linux's NTFS support. There was some glitch that caused the GUI to lock up shortly after booting about 80% of the time, but if I could make it to the console tty it worked like a charm!", "context": "", "use_case": "rescuing data from a dead drive", "switched_from": "", "story": "Knoppix"}, {"id": 779861041, "item_id": 48741315, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48741315", "by": "garkotipankaj", "date": "2026-06-30", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I discovered Porteus (based on slackware) and used it from a 8gb sandisk usb for years.", "excerpt": "Same story! I discovered Porteus (based on slackware) and used it from a 8gb sandisk usb for years. It shipped with xfce and was a blast to tinker with. I learned to compile software from source for it because the package management was non-existent. Taught me a lot. AAAND it's still live: https://www.porteus.org", "context": "", "use_case": "Portable Linux live system", "switched_from": "", "story": "Knoppix"}, {"id": 740469217, "item_id": 46279326, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46279326", "by": "isr", "date": "2025-12-15", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Porteus (or the more bleeding edge Porteux variant)", "excerpt": "There are many which could fit your description. Tiny core, puppy linux varients (voidpup, with the void pkg manager, is pretty nice), etc. However, I think the nicest put together ones are fatdog64 & porteus. fatdog64 is built from scratch (basically, \"Beyond Linux From Scratch\"), but uses a lot of slackware tooling & ethos, so its quite compatible with slack pkgs & slackbuilds. If you dive deeper, its actually got ", "context": "", "use_case": "Live RAM-based Linux distro", "switched_from": "", "story": "Finnix"}, {"id": 740086385, "item_id": 46255399, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46255399", "by": "sombragris", "date": "2025-12-13", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "There's also Porteus, also a Slackware derivative offering KDE Plasma", "excerpt": "I used it sometimes when I needed a live Linux, and I liked it, because it used to be based in Slackware, and it had KDE as its desktop. Now they added Debian as another base, and that's great. Sadly, they dropped KDE. There's also Porteus, also a Slackware derivative offering KDE Plasma -- https://www.porteus.org Slax was and still is a great live distribution. The fact that (at least one of its flavors) is based on", "context": "", "use_case": "live Linux with KDE", "switched_from": "", "story": "Slax: Live Pocket Linux"}]}