# Portable Org-Roam?

**URL:** <https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/portable-org-roam/2276>\
**Category:** Random\
**Created:** [December 15, 2021, 8:16am UTC](https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/portable-org-roam/2276 "2021-12-15T08:16:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jyriand](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3ec8ea/32.png) [@jyriand](https://org-roam.discourse.group/u/jyriand)\
**Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 8:16am UTC](https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/portable-org-roam/2276/1 "2021-12-15T08:16:54Z")

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There is a nice application called Portacle [https://portacle.github.io](https://portacle.github.io)

It’s basically an emacs with preconfigured packages. To run it, you don’t need emacs or `.emacs.d` configured. It comes as a standalone application.

From the website:

> Portacle is a complete IDE for Common Lisp that you can take with you on a USB stick. It is multi-platform and can be run on Windows, OS X, and Linux. Since it does not require any complicated installation process, it is [set up and running](https://portacle.github.io/#get) in no time.  
> It lends itself very well both to absolute beginners of Lisp that just need a good starting point, as well as advanced users that want to minimise the time spent getting everything ready.

What I’m wondering is that would anyone be interested in a similar solution for Org-Roam? I have something similar set up on my own desktop because I want to avoid mixing my regular Emacs for coding and Emacs for note-taking. I have called it “RoamEx” for now, better name suggestions would be appreciated.

Source code for Portacle [Portacle · GitHub](https://github.com/portacle)

Here is a short video of Portacle installation/running:

[![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/free1/uploads/orgroam/original/2X/4/47f1c9916148d114cd1a82b26878bbe6150d9055.jpeg "Install Portacle - IDE for Common Lisp (on 64-Linux Distribution)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2gc9Ip_AO4)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nobiot](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/org-roam.discourse.group/nobiot/32/159_2.png) [@nobiot](https://org-roam.discourse.group/u/nobiot)\
**Post date:** [December 15, 2021, 4:37pm UTC](https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/portable-org-roam/2276/2 "2021-12-15T16:37:05Z")

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> [@jyriand](#):
>
> What I’m wondering is that would anyone be interested in a similar solution for Org-Roam?

I think there is a sizable audience for such a solution for Org-roam.

My experience has been that many people who are new to Emacs are interested in getting Emacs and Org-roam up and running very quickly and start using Emacs/Org-roam.

For example, see my humble guide named [_Zero to Emacs and Org-roam: a step-by-step guide on Windows 10_](https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/zero-to-emacs-and-org-roam-a-step-by-step-guide-on-windows-10/400). It has 1.1k clicks on the link to my GitHub repo – if you look at the link to the chapter “Set up Org-roam (including sqlite3)”, there are 1.3k clicks. The guide was origianlly for v1 of Org-roam. Updating it for v2 has been slow but I still get stars regularly on my repo (now has more than 500 stars).

In addition, you might like to have a read of this post: [_The State of Org-Roam for Actual Beginners_](https://org-roam.discourse.group/t/the-state-of-org-roam-for-actual-beginners/494). It has been viewed by many people on this forum (with 9k views, the 4th most viewed of all time). It’s a very candid assessment of the author’s experience and frustration in trying to get into Emacs and Org-roam, ultimately deciding to move away from it. The subsequent exchange of comments might also inspire such endeavor as “RoamEx” – that is, if you are looking at beginners as its target audience.