“The recent success of the ASUS Eee PC has shown that running
Linux from flash memory is now commercially viable in the consumer
market. If you don’t have an Eee PC, you can still run Linux from a
humble USB flash disk, which will hold not only Linux but also your
data. Several Linux distributions run from flash; here’s how some
of them compare.“Some Linux distributions, such as Mandriva Flash, are specially
designed to work from flash devices. Some provide installers to get
them onto thumb drives, while others can be coerced onto a USB
flash drive with some simple modifications. I tested five Linux
distributions–Damn Small Linux (DSL), Puppy Linux, Pendrivelinux,
Ubuntu, and Mandriva Flash–to see how they fare running from a
flash disk…”