One STsolo --- The address with the best

I'm typing this from the thumb drive edition of Kubuntu . I've been running Linux in one version or another for 10 years now... Never booted from a thumb drive before. But now that I have, I think it's pretty cool, donchaknow . This version provides a lifeline to computing that will fit in your pocket, especially if you have a borked Widows installation, and can't fine anything else that'll work for you, just set up a thumb drive with a bootable version of Linux, and boot away!

Software-wise, some of what I got with this version (installed on a 4GB t/drive) is:

* Graphics: Ocular, OpenOffice Draw, Gwenview, and Ksnapshot. Just what you need for image viewing, screen shots, and some drawing support. Want The GiMP? You'll likely need a larger t/drive for that, or more than what's listed here.

*Internet: Anything you'd need to do e-mail, IRC chat, Bit Torrent, or web browsing; including Konqueror (but no Firefox).

*Multimedia: You get Amarok for listening to .ogg files, but not .MP3's, you get some very nice CD/DVD burning software (K3b) which will come in handy for storing downloads or content you created during your session that you don't want to loose when you power this temporary system down. You also get the very capable Dragon movie player.

*Office: Some PIM apps are included, as well as the core OpenOffice titles.

*Settings, System, Utilities, and Help: The standard apps that let you make settings and generally run things behind the scenes on your system.

No games (would have been nice), and as I mentioned above, no .MP3 support out of the box, which will severely limit your multimedia experience... And no Flash support either (no YouTube). To be fair, this t/drive system is meant to be a bridge over troubled waters, and there may just be a way to install some of what's missing (if you have enough space on the t/drive to hold it all). But (on my high-powered laptop) this system is fast booting, and will give you what you need to get some work and communications done in a pinch. Not bad for a bootable Linux system in your pocket .

Update: Just installed Firefox with KPackage . See the screen shots to see how much storage space I had before the install, then after. Oh, and did I mention I typed this whole thing while Amarok was playing the .ogg version of the Engadget podcast? The 4GB of memory on my lappy was very well used, indeed... Uh, yeah .