Linux in My Pocket

Two weeks ago I wrote about portable applications that you wear in your pocket.

The best program I found to do so was PortableApps, free software, and a series of open-source applications like Open Office package - in a handy menu that runs straight from any USB flash drive.

This approach to portable computers you can use the programs and data files you need if you are not in the office, or if you do not have your notebookComputer. It's especially handy when you're with a new, barebones computer, is installed on only the operating system needs to make.

I've also found PortableApps will be useful, because it lets me run my personalized version of Firefox with all extensions I need already loaded - someone on another computer or an Internet cafe, where they may not be installed using the browser.

Running programs from a flash drive if you provide outside of the office for goodSecurity, too. After leaving, nothing, no data, cookies, backup files or cached browser pages-behind on the computer, which you left. All that is plugged securely into the flash drive.

PortableApps runs on Windows, making it usable to 90 percent of the computers running one or other version of Microsoft operating systems. Portable applications for Mac OS or Linux would not be so practical, because the two operating systems only make up about 10 percent of thethe market.

Interestingly, I found that you PortableApps on a Linux computer as long as you do it interpreted by wine, a program that can run Windows commands and executes them in Linux. When I ran it on my Ubuntu Linux PC in this way, the program behaved quite well, hidden away as a clickable icon on the top on my desktop, similar to the taskbar in Windows.

Of course, wine is not installed by default on most Linux distributions, it will runPortableApps this way would still be a hit-or-issue. Would not it be easier if you could run the operating system directly from a flash drive and bring the programs and data you need on the same floor?

It turns out that it is possible.

For the longest time I had people running Damn Small Linux (only 50 MB!) Or PuppyLinux on flash drives is one. But a cursory look at these distributions has convinced me they were a bit spartan, than Ilike.

I have a guide for installing Ubuntu on a flash drive, but the process was difficult and made with a modified version of the OS.

One of the easiest ways I found came from a site called Pendrive Linux (http://pendrivelinux.com/) carrying out various ways to a variety of Linux distributions on portable USB devices documents. The one I chose was Pen Drive Linux, a package purely on Debian Linux, which also form the basis of the principle of for Ubuntu. To install Pen Drive Linux, you need three things: a USB 2.0 flash drive with at least 1 gigabyte, a copy of the Pen Drive Linux (402 MB, available on the website) and a Linux PC.

There are two caveats. First, you must use the command line or terminal, but it is not difficult if you follow the instructions step by step. Seccond, and more importantly, could you accidentally wipe your hard drive instead of formatting the USB --> Go if you're not careful, you really have what you are doing to be aware.

Create a bootable flash drive took about 10 to 15 minutes. The last step was to build my PC to boot first from the USB flash drive (instead of the hard disk or CD-ROM drive) - something that most modern PC motherboards let through the BIOS setup.

Eagerly, I started my new PC with the flash drive connectedin and in a few minutes I was up and running with Linux Pen Drive that looks a lot like Ubuntu. Performance was brisk, and I hardly noticed that I was not running from the disk.

I have called the wallpaper and screen saver, installed software and some tweaked Firefox (Iceweasel) for some reason, then restarted to determine whether the changes will stick. They have, so I need a portable, yet feature-rich Linux system in my pocket that I can start onmost PCs, even if Windows is installed.