Hey Guys,
Was just wondering if any of you remember hearing about a device that when plugged into a machine's USB port would take over said computer and boot into its own operating system complete with all necessary applications and workspace. I think I came across it on Tom's HG but I can't seem to find it.
It seems like such a device would really benefit a lot of the people on this forum. Maybe the cost was prohibitive or something and hence it doesn't get talked about much, if ever. It's even hard to know what to search for to find such a thing.
The reason behind this is to have a portable work environment complete with every application needed for work, not just the apps that are portable ATM. That way you could have a virtual machine of sorts in your pocket (or backpack, if it's big hdd), and just plug it into some host computer and take over their CPU, memory, and other resources.
Any ideas? links?
later,
Brian
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It's just an operating system loaded onto a USB flash drive. There are variants like Damn Small Linux or Puppy Linux. These do have some limitations, though:
1. Some machines don't support booting from USB at all, mostly older PCs
2. Some machines have booting from USB disabled (well-configured public terminals do this to prevent people from booting something else and hacking the machine)
3. You need to be able to reboot without frightening someone (silly, yes, but some people don't like others rebooting their PCs)
4. It's slow. Very slow. Last I checked it took upwards of 4 minutes to boot from an average speed USB flash drive. If you have a fast one, or a fast portable hard drive, it would be faster.
5. You can't interact with the local PC data. If it's using XP and NTFS, you won't be able to move data back and forth to it. (of course, if you just want to do your own stuff, this isn't an issue)
6. Network access can be tricky... especially if there is a proxy. You won't be able to check what the settings are while booted from your key.
The solution to some of these issues is QEMU which virtualizes the operating system and allows it to run within Windows (DSL has a pre-built download of this). Unfortunately, this is quite slow as well and only recommended on faster PCs.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
I'm very well acquainted with the normal "OS on a key" scenario for linux, but for windows the only one I know of is PE or something similar, which is not capable of doing actual work. What I'm looking for information on is a device of some kind, not just a usb key. It actually takes over the resources of the computer it's plugged into. I may have been wrong saying it needed to boot, it might just run on top of windows in some fashion (like a hack of some kind). If I can remember it was pretty expensive, maybe in the vicinity of $1000. Maybe the company went out of business.
Any ideas on how to search for such a thing? I talked to somebody else about this and they remember something like it being on tv. But I don't know what terms to use. Things like "usb cpu" "portable workspace" "usb portable environment" and the like don't seem to turn anything up.
Also, the applications needed are MS Office and Adobe CS, so linux is out of the question (even if there are comparable OSS alternatives).
Was just hoping someone else would've heard of something like this and just dismissed it as too expensive.
More info here. It was a small USB-powered device that used a flash drive that functioned similar to the U3 devices. When inserted into a windows machine, it would detect the "CD-ROM" portion of the small computer, autorun an X11 server from the disc, and connect the X11 server to the device.
Not too incredibly useful (at least, not to me), but sounds a lot like what you're looking for. It even has a biometric reader for added security.
That looks like what i've seen. I was hoping it was windows based. Oh well.
Now I guess the effort will be put towards getting Office and Creative Suite portable.
Office is completely out of the question for portability. It is created by Microsoft, so by definition it entangles itself within windows. There are too many registry entries that need to be there and files the need to be registered for that too happen. Even if you could figure out all the entries and files needed, most registry entries are located within HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, which means administrator rights are a absolute necessity for that to work. Same goes for registering files.
As for Creative Suite. I had created portable photoshop 7 once. Worked fine, but due to trademark issues and since it is not opensource, it will not be handled by anyone here. you cna check the forums for those that have tried. but we work on free opensource products, not commerecial.
I am not trying to sound bad, just trying to save you some time.
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Deuce {The Core}{Dev Blog}
Portable Software: Just the beginning.
Deuce
Portable Software: Just the beginning.