I do not have a great knowledge of Linux but I do know of two very small distros that can run from memory stick that could perhaps be converted to run in windows with an emulator. They are Damn Small Linux and Puppy Linux. Both are pretty slick as I have tried them from Live CDs, Puppy Linux is a little bigger in size but is expandable with extra apps and is bit better on the eye where as Damn Small Linux is smaller but uglier.
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I use ubuntu (literally) as a live cd in qemu.
cowsay Moo
cowthink 'Dude, why are you staring at me.'
http://www.slax.org/
Slackware 12 for system
MCP (For XP and Server 2003)
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aim is "nycjv321" (minus quotes)
Well there is a way to get ubuntu running on a flashdrive. I mean for ubuntummc I got mine running off of my flashdrive but it's the persistant Live usb so nothing really happens but yet it does.
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"I don't fear Computers. I fear the lack of them" Isaac Asimov
your friendly neighbourhood moderator Zach Thibeau
there is a version of ubuntu thatworks with pendrive linux and needs at lest a 1 gig drive but a 2 is better.
look this up
pendrivelinux.com/2007/01/25/usb-x-ubuntu-610/
*Edit* look up Linux Mint its an offshoot Distro from Ubuntu. you can installit straight from the bootable CD to a flash drive. I have found Mint to be easier to use than Ubuntu it has alot of automatic stuff. Give that one a try
An Old Irish Blessing
May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, and rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of His hand.
MickeyJ4J
Yep, I got the caps backward. Oops. I left it for it's eye-catchiness.
I've spent the last 2 weeks in a quest to find a complete portable solution, something that will run in eqemu mode in either windows or linux, yet will boot your computer at the hardware level as well when I want to run it as my main os, while keeping all my settings, bookmarks, documents, etc.. I found almost this perfection in Qemu-Puppy at http://www.erikveen.dds.nl/qemupuppy/index.html , but it suffers from a problem with sound in Windows. This is seriously frustrating, since I was hoping to use it for all internet-related tasks to run alongside windows, when I really felt like running windows. I mean, we're almost there! We're |THIS| close to that "holy grail. Since I nearly gave up on that, I've heard about Pizza Pup, which I think is a perfect base for a really good portable linux, because it's smaller and has Firefox included (I actually already put Pizzapups files into Qemu-Puppy, and it's really cool, but still has no sound when in windows. I think if anyone's thinking of making a Linux Portable App,it should be a goal to aim for this kind of versatility, to boot it in Windows for convenience, and then to boot the computer itself for better performance.
This would be the perfect means by which someone could gradually convert everything over into linux with minimal hassle.
find help at the puppy forums to get the sound working.
“Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts” - Richard P. Feynman
"What about Love?" - "Overrated. Biochemically no different than eating large quantities of chocolate." - Al Pacino in The Devils Advocate
I made a posting about this back in September of '06:
I found another portable OS while suurfing the net. It's at http://www.metropipe.net/pvpm.php and it's linux that runs w/o needing to reboot
Please search before requesting, that's a big problem around here.
f r e e s p i r e !
www.freespire.org
best out there. "out of the box" support for every file type, fully compatable with just about everything, giant "warehouse" of software custom made for freespire. just go to the website and read for a fiew minuts.
(TM)sergentsilerlogo:<(TM(sergentsiler) http://www.sergentsiler.freespaces.com/
Zoop
...for Freespire *v2* to come out.
They's takin' they sweet time, that's sho' 'nuff...
"I don't hate cats...as long as they stay on the freeway, where they belong."
- Brad Stine
I just took another look at your suggestion. It hasn't been updated since April 2006. That is a long time with Firefox 1.5! The suggestion is appreciated, but there are better-supported usb linux solutions. Personally, I use a full install of PCLinuxOS 2007 on an old 10gb laptop drive in a $20 external casing.
You got my attention alanbcohen. I don't know what you mean by external casing? Is that a USB stick or maybe an external hard drive. My old laptop is also a 10gb that doesn't boot from a USB and I've been trying to find an easy way, just download and install since I'm not into codeing, to make a Portable PCLINUXOS on a stick or even my external drive. Hopefully download and burn a bootstrap CD for it also for booting it up. Do you know if this is possible? Any suggestions? Thanks.
Sorry it took so long to reply, Jim.
I have several external enclosures that turn old IDE notebook (2.5") drives into drives that connect via USB. You can also find similar enclosures that work with the larger 3.5" and 5" drives or even the newest SATA drives. Some may also offer the ability to connect via firewire ports instead of USB. if that is your preference. I've bought them from CompUSA and Radio Shack, but they can be found on the web or at other retailers as well. Here is an example google search:
http://www.google.com/search?q=drive+external+enclosures+usb&ie=utf-8&oe...
Calm down, it was only 10 months.
Just thought I'd mention when using the USB-ZIP version of Damn Small Linux, be sure to back up your secondary (docs) partition often as I'm finding that DSL seems to be corrupting the filesystem (so all the other files disappear and are later found by scandisk as lost file fragments) when it saves the RAM disk home directory to an archive on that partition. (The version I'm using is slightly old so it may be fixed in the latest version.)
Qemu is great. It is portable, and can run ANY distro. The problems I have are
1) on older hardware, the video and sound don't work
2) it is not fast enough.
I found Qemu a few years ago when I couldn't get Bochs to run Knoppix 3.7 fast enough. Qemu has made great stride in improving compatibility, but still isn't fast emough. On my hardware, Virtualbox seems to be a much faster emulator. I have not tried to make virtualbox portable, but it may be a better option.
Regardless of the emulator, a full-screen portable-apps Linux distro would be sweet.
Especially if it worked on a hard disk image and/or was aware of the portable device in Windows.
I like this configuration/methodology:
1) Pop the USB device into the PC/Laptop running Windows.
2) Portable-Apps launches
3) In the Portable-Apps menu, I choose my Linux Distro, or Macinstosh OS
4) A window pops up asking me if I want to run in a window or fullscreen and at which resolution
5) From the fully booted, emulated Linux distribution, I can access the host computer's drives, peripherals, and even the USB thumb drive I am running Portable-Apps from, with read/write access.
Is that not ultimate? If that could run at near-native speeds, I would probably not need to carry my laptop with me, ever.
QEMU-Puppy A puppy based distro. it can be run in Windows or Linux systems that i know of. find it at puppylinux(dot)org search for QEMU-Puppy there or follow link below
http://puppylinux.org/wiki/archives/old-wikka-wikki/categoryderivative/q...
An Old Irish Blessing
May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind always be at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, and rains fall soft upon your fields. And until we meet again, May God hold you in the palm of His hand.
MickeyJ4J
http://www.slym.fr/?p=113
recently I came over this version of portable ubuntu. It is automatic configuration tool for ubuntu. It will even download the ubuntu, format your stick properly and install ubuntu bootable , live and virtual box vm at same time. No hassle no config files etc, all very automatic.
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland
A suggestion for you if you just want to use a Linux variant at school or work; how about suggesting to the 'powers that be' (controlling the computers) that installing a virtual machine solution (like VMPlayer, VirtualBox, or VirtualIron) would be to their advantage. They would be allowing people to freely use the computers without the danger of corrupting the software on the boxes?
Second alternative, Moka5 (Google it) is a portable solution for running VMPlayer (not the current version, but not too old either) via a USB drive. It has other limitations as well. But it might be worth a try.
Not likely to happen in most places. Most jobs\schools\etc. limit the activities of the users for security purposes. Giving people access to virtual machines would mean unmonitored and uncontrollable usage. They would still be able to limit network access, but not what the users were doing. And a very plausible scenario... What if someone brought an infected VM into the network... That would be a mess. Any halfway sane admin would never allow it.
and they already hav v2.0 alpha! (but it isnt supported_
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Zoop
One might look at co-linux I don't know the requirements of the installation but any small linux should work (slax, dsl, puppy, feather)
I used to use it at school, i tan Gentoo, Ubuntu, and i think Debian. But its been a while since i used it. VMPlayer is free but u have to download the OS from the site, htey hae a lot and they are recent.
Heres the link: http://www.vmware.com/products/player/
Here is the link with the OS: http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/cat/45
Hope this helped, and WMPlayer is completely portable i think.
New to Making Portable apps, but not to portable apps
>Hope this helped, and WMPlayer is completely portable i think.
Otto Sykora
Basel, Switzerland
Like i said, "i think", i havent used VMPlayer in like 2 years, back then it was completely portable. Are you sure that you are nothing thinking about VMWare?
New to Making Portable apps, but not to portable apps
I recently found a program for installing Fedora on a flash drive, you can use (to my knowledge) any version of Fedora, (Gnome or KDE), either by downloading the .iso yourself, or having the program download it for you. The best part is, it's a persistent install, so any changes you make/programs you install will be saved, unlike with live CDs.
Just grab a flash drive with some space, install Fedora, and you can use it to boot on any computer which supports booting from flash-drives.
https://fedorahosted.org/liveusb-creator/
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"When you always know what is right, where is freedom? No one chooses the wrong, Jacen Solo. Uncertainty sets you free."
Most distros that are activly developed now have a way to boot to a USB image. Suse, Fedora and Ubuntu all have one from my knowlage. there are some others.