Gone are the days in which I am forced to use Windows. From now on I carry a Linux distro around my neck where ever I go. I have access to all my files and my favourite programs where ever I am. I carry everything I need on a 16GB Corsair Flash Voyager GT memory stick (on the right –>). Many distros support USB installations these days and I have tried two.

Firstly I went for Fedora 10. It’s really not as difficult as I thought it would be! Just yum install liveusb-creator then go to Applications > System Tools > liveusb-creator. This will bring up a nice program to make the proccess easy. And yes it is cross browser compatible! Well at least it works on XP, i’m not sure about Vista or Mac. There is one major disadvantage to the installer – it only lets your distro take up 2GB. I’m not sure why though. Anyway it’s as simple as select your device, your iso, your size and then just press the Create button! One bonus is that there is no need to change the file system, ie. you can still see the files through Windows. When your finished just reboot > go to multi boot menu > select USB > bang and you will see the friendly Fedora splash screen!

I was a little deterred by the small size of the Fedora installation so I decided to try something different. Dream Linux seemed like a good direction to go in. It is really all a Dream, and I like the Mac-like dock, that’s what really sold it for me. Initially I went for an on-the-edge version – DL 3.5 Candidate 5. After a long night of trying to figure out why it wouldn’t work I googled the error and found out that there is a bug in this candidate that prevents any Pen DL installations from being successful! One day and one long download later I started from scratch on DL 3.2 (a very safe and stable version I must say!). It’s relatively easy to create a USB distro with DL as well. Just select the Pen DL installer (should be on the desktop) and choose the relevant options. One disadvantage here is that you must use a Linux file system, I chose ext3, which means that you cannot look at the stick contents on Windows. I tried partitioning after the install but it would not let me! Anyway why would you want to look at your stick from Windows if you can just look at you whole computer!

In the end I stuck with Dream linux for a few small reasons, it gives you a choice on each boot between xfce and Gnome, it lets you “add modules” or programs to your USB which will remain forever, and it lets you use as much space on the disk as you want! One thing I don’t get about either of the installations is that while you are using your pen distro you cannot access the files that are actually on the computer that your using – at least I don’t know how to do it anyway. This does seem a bit stupid because whats the point in bringing a stick to use on another computer if you can’t look at files from that computer! It is possible on live DVDs, why not live USBs? I can’t stress enough, if you are going to do this yourself get a decent memory stick! The one I went for works seamlessly, there is no apparent difference between booting from it and booting from a hard disk. I should also mention that your stick will only work on computers that support booting from USB, but most modern computers do anyway.

Conclusion: Break out of the system, use a portable distro and shock innocent Windows users!