If you spend enough time in Linux circles, you’ll eventually run into someone arguing about which distribution is the fastest. Now the developer behind PorteuX is making a pretty bold claim.
PorteuX 2.7 has arrived (download here), and according to its developer, the lightweight Linux distribution now outperforms CachyOS in Geekbench 6. That’s a notable statement considering CachyOS has built much of its reputation around squeezing as much performance as possible from modern hardware.
Whether those benchmark numbers translate into a noticeably faster desktop experience for everyone is another question entirely. Benchmarks can be useful, but they rarely tell the whole story. Still, the claim alone is likely to get Linux enthusiasts talking.
The new release was delayed longer than expected due to several upstream issues, with the biggest headache reportedly being problems related to the Linux kernel’s NTFS3 driver. As a result, PorteuX 2.7 switches to the newer NTFS-Plus driver, which the project says is both faster and more reliable. Existing symbolic links created on NTFS partitions with NTFS3 will need to be recreated.
Performance improvements appear throughout the release. The developer says build flags, linker settings, and module stripping have all been refined to improve speed while reducing module sizes. PorteuX also switches its ZSWAP compressor to LZ4 for lower latency and adopts BBR as the default TCP congestion control algorithm to improve network performance.
There are plenty of software updates too. PorteuX 2.7 ships with GCC 16.1.0, FFmpeg 8.1.1, Qt 6.11.1, GNOME 50.2, KDE Plasma 6.7.0, Cinnamon 6.6.8, COSMIC 1.0.16, and LXQt 2.4.0. The Linux kernel has been updated to version 7.1.1, while NVIDIA users get driver version 610.43.02.
The release also includes a long list of bug fixes and quality-of-life improvements. Webcam support has been enhanced, Android Binders support has been enabled in the kernel, support for cgroup v1 has been added, and a new native PorteuX cursor theme makes its debut. Users of KDE’s image viewer will also benefit from expanded image format support.
PorteuX has always targeted users who want a lightweight, portable, and modular Linux experience. Version 2.7 doesn’t change that mission, but it does put a heavy emphasis on performance. If you’ve been looking for a Linux distribution that prioritizes speed above almost everything else, this release may be worth checking out.
As for whether PorteuX is truly faster than CachyOS? Linux users will undoubtedly spend the next few weeks testing that claim for themselves.
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