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How long does it take to re-partition the drive, and load a Linux Live CD distro?

Puppy Linux installs in a couple of minutes, ready to go.

http://www.puppylinux.org/

Whole system in under 90 MB,
Runs in RAM from Hard Drive, Flash Drive, or Live CD.
Comes with all these standard Applications.
Download and install even more programs here.

Try the Live CD .iso.

You will be glad you did!

How long does it take to re-partition the drive, and load a Linux Live CD distro?

Puppy Linux installs in a couple of minutes, ready to go.

http://www.puppylinux.org/

Whole system in under 90 MB,
Runs in RAM from Hard Drive, Flash Drive, or Live CD.
Comes with all these standard Applications.
Download and install even more programs here.

Try the Live CD .iso.

You will be glad you did!

The Best Fast Linux is here:.

OS + Base Apps in less than 90 MB
Boot from a USB Flash Drive, Live CD, or Hard Drive.

Lots of Applications for.

Puppy Linux is very Fast, Download .iso here: Live CD.

Learn More about.

The Best Fast Linux is here:.

OS + Base Apps in less than 90 MB
Boot from a USB Flash Drive, Live CD, or Hard Drive.

Lots of Applications for.

Puppy Linux is very Fast, Download .iso here: Live CD.

Learn More about.

The Best Fast Linux is here:.

OS + Base Apps in less than 90 MB
Boot from a USB Flash Drive, Live CD, or Hard Drive.

Lots of Applications for.

Puppy Linux is very Fast, Download .iso here: Live CD.

Learn More about.

The Best Fast Linux is here:.

OS + Base Apps in less than 90 MB
Boot from a USB Flash Drive, Live CD, or Hard Drive.

Lots of Applications for.

Puppy Linux is very Fast, Download .iso here: Live CD.

Learn More about.

Does he mean $4Gb? Four GigaBucks?

Yes, if you dump $4,096 on a top-of-the-line machine, you too can boot up WordPad.

What is Vista written in, Visual COBOL?

Why is it I can get All These Applications,
and the Whole Operating System, in under 90MB,
but Vista can't boot up until you empty your bank account?

Puppy Linux - your system on a stick.
OS, Apps, Data, Songs, Videos - just plop them all on a flash drive.

1. Download the Live Puppy Linux CD here.
2. Burn .iso file to a CD and Reboot - booting up from the CD.
3. Run the Install to USB Flash Drive,
4. Reboot setting your BIOS to boot from the flash drive.
5. Enjoy running your whole system without needing a hard drive!

PROFIT! (Invest the money you saved by NOT buying into the Vista Cabal.)

(Puppy Linux runs Fast on any Windows XP computer, lightening fast on any computer that is 'Vista Ready' - 4 GB of RAM -or $4000 - Not Needed.)

Does he mean $4Gb? Four GigaBucks?

Yes, if you dump $4,096 on a top-of-the-line machine, you too can boot up WordPad.

What is Vista written in, Visual COBOL?

Why is it I can get All These Applications,
and the Whole Operating System, in under 90MB,
but Vista can't boot up until you empty your bank account?

Puppy Linux - your system on a stick.
OS, Apps, Data, Songs, Videos - just plop them all on a flash drive.

1. Download the Live Puppy Linux CD here.
2. Burn .iso file to a CD and Reboot - booting up from the CD.
3. Run the Install to USB Flash Drive,
4. Reboot setting your BIOS to boot from the flash drive.
5. Enjoy running your whole system without needing a hard drive!

PROFIT! (Invest the money you saved by NOT buying into the Vista Cabal.)

(Puppy Linux runs Fast on any Windows XP computer, lightening fast on any computer that is 'Vista Ready' - 4 GB of RAM -or $4000 - Not Needed.)

Does he mean $4Gb? Four GigaBucks?

Yes, if you dump $4,096 on a top-of-the-line machine, you too can boot up WordPad.

What is Vista written in, Visual COBOL?

Why is it I can get All These Applications,
and the Whole Operating System, in under 90MB,
but Vista can't boot up until you empty your bank account?

Puppy Linux - your system on a stick.
OS, Apps, Data, Songs, Videos - just plop them all on a flash drive.

1. Download the Live Puppy Linux CD here.
2. Burn .iso file to a CD and Reboot - booting up from the CD.
3. Run the Install to USB Flash Drive,
4. Reboot setting your BIOS to boot from the flash drive.
5. Enjoy running your whole system without needing a hard drive!

PROFIT! (Invest the money you saved by NOT buying into the Vista Cabal.)

(Puppy Linux runs Fast on any Windows XP computer, lightening fast on any computer that is 'Vista Ready' - 4 GB of RAM -or $4000 - Not Needed.)

Everything you need is right here - vr. 2.14.

Puppy Linux - As well as the other 'small distros' - run like mad on current hardware, or bring that 4 year old laptop back to life.

Puppy's are cute. Puppy's like to play.

Puppy's are fun! Puppy Linux runs most everything in RAM - very fast.

Put a whole system on your keychain USB flash drive. Or just boot from the Live CD and start using it. No Install needed.

GNOME? KDE? Big fat pigs. Pigs smell funny. Pigs slop mud around your yard.

Keychain Computing is the future of Software development.
Booting from hard drives is like booting from 8" Floppy Disks.
A thing of centuries past.

It is nice to have whole systems, plus all applications - running from a USB stick.
Any place, Any Time, it just works.

More info here.

Everything you need is right here - vr. 2.14.

Puppy Linux - As well as the other 'small distros' - run like mad on current hardware, or bring that 4 year old laptop back to life.

Puppy's are cute. Puppy's like to play.

Puppy's are fun! Puppy Linux runs most everything in RAM - very fast.

Put a whole system on your keychain USB flash drive. Or just boot from the Live CD and start using it. No Install needed.

GNOME? KDE? Big fat pigs. Pigs smell funny. Pigs slop mud around your yard.

Keychain Computing is the future of Software development.
Booting from hard drives is like booting from 8" Floppy Disks.
A thing of centuries past.

It is nice to have whole systems, plus all applications - running from a USB stick.
Any place, Any Time, it just works.

More info here.

Just use an OS X USB stick.

Boot up OS X when you need it, when you don't,
shut down, unplug, back to your regular Vista Ultimate Mojo JoJo MegaMaxi OS.

Keychain Computing already has a foot hold on many users,
and as flash RAM decreases in price, soon you'll have a 64GB flash drive in your pocket for $69 bucks.

You can store and boot a lot of OS and Applications and data in just a few Gigs, more is better!
( Switch to http://www.puppylinux.org/ you'll be glad you did. )

Keychain computers - OS and Apps on your car keys with your data files.

Right now you can keep your Linux Operating System, and a bunch of Apps all on a USB Memory Stick.

This can put your whole system in your pocket.

As memory density increases and price declines, a 64 GB Flash Drive Memory Stick will come about at reasonable prices.

With More than 50 GB hanging from your keys - all your data and system files can boot and run on any machine.

Walk up, plug in - run your system.
Shutdown - everything is saved to your USB Flash Drive. Even in encrypted files if you wish.

No hard drive needed. Better security - easy to back up. Finger Print reader to boot. Even play MP3s (Think the creative MuVo MP3 player / USB Drive combo).
These will be the walk about systems used by many people.

Only to be out done by the Ultimate Expression of technology,
an Apple iPhone version of the OQO computer system:
An iPhone that is a phone/information device in your pocket,
and a full powered desktop system when plugged into it's base station dock.
(and with Samsung's 10 Megapixel camera phone camera (photos/video)

The Ultimate Singularity in all devices rolled into one:
Desktop Power, Cell Phone, 10MP Video/Photo Camera, email, voice mail, chat, web browsing, MP3 player, video player.

About the only thing NOT in your pocket is a printer and coffee maker!

The real trick is that the All-in-one pocket gizmo functionality is not compromised,
each of the individual functions should work as good as or better than the stand alone devices,
and all the functions should work seamlessly together - multiplying the usability 10 fold.

And stop making the Darn things Thinner, Smaller, and Swoopier!!!
Give us a Battery that actually lasts 24~48 hours run time at full operating power! (watching movies while chatting with a friend and downloading files in the background).
I honestly don't mind a phone that is 8 mm thicker - if that thickness gives me plenty of run time.
Recharging should be a once a week experience, not a once a day necessity.

Puppy Linux OS + Apps = 84MB.

I've been using Puppy Linux for some time now,
it lives up to it's name - the friendliest small Linux install I've ever encountered.
Boots clean and fast from a USB stick, runs everything from a compressed RAM drive.

DSL Linux is a bit smaller, but Puppy Apps seem to work better.

The only shortcoming I find in Linux in general is overall support for new scanners/printers/cameras.
Drivers always seem to be a low priority to the OEMs.

Get the Puppy Linux LiveCD .iso file Here.

1. Burn CD 2.Boot CD 3. Run Install Wizard to USB flash drive memory stick. Done.

Puppy Linux OS + Apps = 84MB.

I've been using Puppy Linux for some time now,
it lives up to it's name - the friendliest small Linux install I've ever encountered.
Boots clean and fast from a USB stick, runs everything from a compressed RAM drive.

DSL Linux is a bit smaller, but Puppy Apps seem to work better.

The only shortcoming I find in Linux in general is overall support for new scanners/printers/cameras.
Drivers always seem to be a low priority to the OEMs.

Get the Puppy Linux LiveCD .iso file Here.

1. Burn CD 2.Boot CD 3. Run Install Wizard to USB flash drive memory stick. Done.

The real upgrade you need is here.

Vista really is a Downgrade,
Vista slows down your start up,
Vista slows down your desktop,
Vista slows down your applications...
That is why you got to go buy a $3000 machine just to get the thing to start up.
Vista Downgrade.

Puppy Linux - is a real Upgrade.

Whole OS + Apps - boots from USB Flash Drive Memory Stick.
Whole OS & many Apps run in RAM from RAM drive.
Save files and settings back to USB Flash Drive.
Unplug - nothing left behind in hard drive - much more secure.
Puppy runs great on a 486 with limited ram,
just think how great it runs on a Core 2 Duo.
Puppy Linux even supports Windows XP themes and Vista Themes for that look-alike feel.

Can Vista equip a whole CyberCafe for under $60 bucks?

Vista? - Give me Vista on a booting 2GB USB memory stick, with MS Office, Outlook, Access, Windows Media Player, Net Meeting, Internet Explore, Antivirus, WinDVD Gold, iTunes, and Visual developer tools all running in RAM and leave 1 GB free for my own files.

Bloatware is not Betterware.

The real upgrade you need is here.

Vista really is a Downgrade,
Vista slows down your start up,
Vista slows down your desktop,
Vista slows down your applications...
That is why you got to go buy a $3000 machine just to get the thing to start up.
Vista Downgrade.

Puppy Linux - is a real Upgrade.

Whole OS + Apps - boots from USB Flash Drive Memory Stick.
Whole OS & many Apps run in RAM from RAM drive.
Save files and settings back to USB Flash Drive.
Unplug - nothing left behind in hard drive - much more secure.
Puppy runs great on a 486 with limited ram,
just think how great it runs on a Core 2 Duo.
Puppy Linux even supports Windows XP themes and Vista Themes for that look-alike feel.

Can Vista equip a whole CyberCafe for under $60 bucks?

Vista? - Give me Vista on a booting 2GB USB memory stick, with MS Office, Outlook, Access, Windows Media Player, Net Meeting, Internet Explore, Antivirus, WinDVD Gold, iTunes, and Visual developer tools all running in RAM and leave 1 GB free for my own files.

Bloatware is not Betterware.

The real upgrade you need is here.

Vista really is a Downgrade,
Vista slows down your start up,
Vista slows down your desktop,
Vista slows down your applications...
That is why you got to go buy a $3000 machine just to get the thing to start up.
Vista Downgrade.

Puppy Linux - is a real Upgrade.

Whole OS + Apps - boots from USB Flash Drive Memory Stick.
Whole OS & many Apps run in RAM from RAM drive.
Save files and settings back to USB Flash Drive.
Unplug - nothing left behind in hard drive - much more secure.
Puppy runs great on a 486 with limited ram,
just think how great it runs on a Core 2 Duo.
Puppy Linux even supports Windows XP themes and Vista Themes for that look-alike feel.

Can Vista equip a whole CyberCafe for under $60 bucks?

Vista? - Give me Vista on a booting 2GB USB memory stick, with MS Office, Outlook, Access, Windows Media Player, Net Meeting, Internet Explore, Antivirus, WinDVD Gold, iTunes, and Visual developer tools all running in RAM and leave 1 GB free for my own files.

Bloatware is not Betterware.

Thanks Microsoft,

I double checked my .iso files for my linux downloads,
and they work just fine - they are Genuine Linux Live CDs.

Ubuntu is working just fine on my desktops.

Puppy is The Best upgrade for laptops I've
ever installed.

Puppy Linux loads completely from a keychain flash drive,
and runs everything from a RAM drive, no hard drive needed.

All Genuine Linux, working very nicely, thank you.

Yeah, Damn Small Linux is good, but I prefer Puppy Linux because I've found it to be more easily customizable. Using Puppy Unleashed, I've made a custom version that includes the software I consider essential (vim, screen, sshfs, mplayer, mp3blaster, ratpoison, etc). Each of those is not available on the standard live-cd, but I added them to my custom version - and got them working the way I like - with a few hours of work. Most of that time was spent burning test CD-RW's to make sure that everything interacted correctly (elinks needs to know how to play nice with screen, ~/.bashrc needs to included vim specific variables, among other details).

Boot process (for my somewhat large ~85MB version) is under 1 min on the machine I most recently tested (a 1.4ghz athalon box with 512MB RAM). That is faster than the WinXP boot process for that machine. Several versions of Puppy fit on a 50MB buisiness card sized CD and load even faster.

Small, fast, up-to-date, user-friendly: everything linux was supposed to be.

I just picked up a "spare" thinkpad T21 (PIII 800MHz, 384MB RAM)

I booted Puppy Linux, and after about 5 minutes figuring out where Puppy stores the WEP key, had that box on line. It's rocket fast and requires no tweaking. I was blown away with how well I could open word and excel documents from OWA.

New OS' from Redmond always need more CPU and RAM. Interestingly, I was also recently shocked at how usable Tiger was on a G3 233 with 256MB RAM. DARN usable. Try that with a current MS OS and hardware built in 1999! :)

You should really be looking at Puppy Linux or Damn Small Linux.

I ran Linux in a much more constrained environment back in 1993 (4MB RAM with ample swap, 40MB Disk, 386, laptop) and it ran at a decent speed with a decent set of applications (yes, even back then).

I'd be *really* surprised if Linux today couldn't fit in your environment. But you'll likely have to forget KDE/GNOME. They're *nice* but not necessary. My old system used FVWM which is still perfectly capable (I was used it last year on Solaris -- there's even a Win95-like config), although now there are slicker alternatives like XFCE and IceWM which are also available and better supported by default on many distros.

Here are a few alternatives to consider which are more targetted to your needs. You might want to them all out and see which one you like best:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Xubuntu
http://www.puppylinux.org/user/viewpage.php?page_i d=1
http://www.vectorlinux.com/
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

Distros like Puppy Linux are designed to run on older hardware (like a P-166) and still have reasonably featureful software.

I have a similar policy (on a much smaller scale than Free Geek) at my shop.

With your specs, I would seriously consider something on the lines of Damn Small Linux http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ or Puppy Linux http://www.puppylinux.org/.

Damn Small now has nice options for apt, so it'll be somewhat familiar for package installation. Also, it absolutely flies... We're turning out systems as small as 166 MHz Pentiums w/ 96 MB of ram on 6 GB HD's -- and those all get DSL. Anything less that's donated usually winds up as parts.

Good luck.

You're looking at Knoppix and talking about the speed like it's surprising. Knoppix's specialty is that it includes everything but the kitchen sink. Other distros specialize in speed (or small size, which equates to most of the same thing). If I recall, Wolvix http://wolvix.org/node/25 is 128mb (or is it 256?) to fit on a USB. I've tried Wolvix and it's pretty quick. Also tried Dyne:Bolic http://www.dynebolic.org/ and it performs fairly quick considering it's size!

You know what all of the above distros have in common? They don't use KDE !!! Stay away from an 800 pound gorilla for a desktop on a live CD and you'll see load times halve right there!

PS: another tip: In a live CD, try to ascertain how much RAM it found on your system and whether it knows where your swap partitions are. Some live CDs miss out here, or need a little manual help.

This concept would be much better implemented by creating a special Ubuntu live cd to look at a usb flash disk for the /home partition or even to save all settings like http://puppylinux.org/

Not all old machines can even boot from usb, and the install on a flash disk approach doesn't make since Ubuntu would need to be resinstalled every time to get everything set up properly for the hardware that you booted with. For example, if you install Ubuntu on a machine with an nvidia video card, then try to boot that image on a machine with an ATI card, it will not work without changing xorg.conf. But a live cd configures xorg.conf dynamically each boot. If you want the speed of a mini hard drive instead of cd but still want maximum portability, put a bootable image of the the live CD on the mini hard drive but still have a data partition. Yes, it takes an extra minute to go through the debian bootstrap process with hardware detection at each boot, but if you want portability that is probably necessary.

I would love to develop a product like this, but puppy linux may already be good enough. If someone wants to work on this I'd love to help distribute the free software and sell the accompanying hardware and support, so contact me @ groovix.com.