[Wylug-help] Linux Distro on Bootable USB Stick

[Dave Fisher]

On Mon, Oct 10, 2005 at 10:30:14AM +0100, John Hodrien wrote:
> On Mon, 10 Oct 2005, Dave Fisher wrote:
> 
> >OTOH, if anyone has experience which suggests that the read-write speed
> >of Flash memory is too poor to support standard desktop distros and
> >apps, I would appreciate any suggestions about how to get around the
> >problem.
> 
> Are you really going to end up with something more useful than a 
> DVD-Knoppix +
> USB pen?  

If you mean 'DVD-Knoppix plus USB pen for storage-only', the
answer may be 'yes'. 

Some of the PCs I'm likely to work with won't have DVD drives.

Is DVD-Knoppix now an 'official' release?  

The last time I looked, it was only available as a trade show give-away
and the URL for the ISO no longer worked.


> Is upgrading your distro 'away from home' that important to you?

Yes.  I've got a lousy memory, and often find myself forgetting to load
applications which I want to use for remote teaching/mentoring purposes,
but which aren't on my base system.

In addition, delegates/clients often ask unpredictable questions for
which the most helpful answer is to download and demonstrate an
application from the net.

> R/W speed of good flash memory isn't that bad, but finding benchmarks for 
> USB
> pens can be tricky.

I'm not too bothered about precise benchmarks.  My basic benchmark would
be 'is the response time tolerably for the average user?'. In most
cases, I can preload apps at the beginning of a session, so startup
times don't matter too much.

Dave