thelinuxlink.net

For my new job I basically take in Windows PCs and try to fix them. For this I have a 4GB USB Thumbdrive with the following on it:

• 7-Zip - For extracting basically any archive
• ClamWin - For scanning for viruses and malware
• Firefox - For browsing on a good browser that I can save my bookmarks and preferences onto
• GAIM - Because you should always have an IM client
• OpenOffice - Because you never know when you have to open a crappy Word document
• Putty - SSH should need no explaination
• VLC - Sometimes needed to test sound
• SIW - Shows almost everything about your system (we need something similar for Linux)

(I also have a free AVG edition setup executable to install anti-virus and a free codecs setup executable which I install on everyones machine, take that microsoft! )

Anyways I was wondering if Windows (Vista and XP mostly) would be able to read this if I also had a Linux distro on the thumbdrive on a different partition. Would this work? Would I have to put Linux as the first or second partition?

Also if you have any recommendations for portable distros or apps please let me know.

It should be fine if you add a linux distro to it. I have SLAX on mine. Its on the same partition as my files and works fine.

Karl wrote:It should be fine if you add a linux distro to it. I have SLAX on mine. Its on the same partition as my files and works fine.

Oh you just installed it on your fat partition? I forgot you could do that. It would be nice to keep them seperate but I guess that would work. How much does a base install of SLAX take up? The software I have on my thumbdrive now takes up about 110MB which should leave enough to install a fair amount of programs on it correct?

I've been using TiddlyWiki myself. It's a great way to keep notes on routine problems that you run into. Links to your various LAN directories that you may need regular access to. Keeping a copy of any scripts there is also a great thing.

Don't forget to backup the key. There's nothing worse than having all this stuff and the knowledge base build up then losing the key.

CptnObvious999 wrote: [*]SIW - Shows almost everything about your system (we need something similar for Linux)[/list].

Try dmidecode

Jza wrote:

CptnObvious999 wrote: [*]SIW - Shows almost everything about your system (we need something similar for Linux)[/list].

Try dmidecode

Thanks for the suggestion, it seems to report a bunch of good information although in a long and more cryptic form, it would be nice to have a good frontend for it. Maybe that is a project I should start as my programming skills have been stagnant for a while.

Anyways I downloaded SLAX and tried to install it on my USB drive but when I boot from it is says "kernel image not found for: linux" (I'm not sure if that was the exact message, I will check when I get home). Can anyone point me to a tutorial that they know works with the latest SLAX?

Here is what I followed:
http://os.newsforge.com/os/05/07/08/1522251.shtml?tid=2

What I keep at all times when I repair a system and I don't want to carry a Linux install disk; I keep this binary around http://goodbye-microsoft.com/. Lovely if your client wants to run Linux instead of Windows and you don't have a disk around. (:

Great project, I support it all the way.

Cheers.