I have a question that might seem bizzare and difficult to answer, see I want to build a robot as a school project in electronics that I must do untill the end of next year and one of the things that I though of is a voice-command robot... however since my programming skills aren't nearly good enought to create a voice-command program I though of Using a OS in a USB card, Damn Small Linux to be exact , but I am unsure if DSL can manage this so before I start anything I'd like to know if DSL can do it... so my plan is basiclly like this:

1)Install DSL on my 512MB USB Stick, and configure it from my current OS (Since my computer doesnt support boot from USB) by using chroot and stuff like that (it case its impossible I'll install DSL but I'd prefure not to). A part of this configuration is to connect to the microphone and other components of the robot

2)Install a voice-recognition software(I've heard theres a few for Linux though I never did looked into the subject.) and configurate it so a certain voice-command will cause the robot to run a program which I installed and compiled earlier in the USB card. examples for commands is "go forward" and robot runs a program that activates the motors forwards

3)after all the software is laid out, connect the card to the robot and make it boot up automaticlly DSL, activating the OS and causing a sound(beep or voice using text2speech) to signify bootup (I dont know how to make the USB auto-boot however)

these are the basic things that I expect, furthermore It would be great it these things would be possible aswell:

Making DSL respond to voice-commands by making the Voice-recognition activate text-to-speech and activating the related program.

I know this will be very hard but I believe I can do it, my only problem is my lack of knowledge in Linux and DSL in particular. I know what hardware will I use for now, or if I'll even do this project or something else so feel free and say anything that is related, especially what hardware for this type of project is supported (so that I wont take a processor that isn't supported and mess everything up)

I was going to say use LFS, but then read the last paragraph.

Try here for some info: http://www.linuxrobots.org/wiki

Nice site A great resource... Thanks

and just for the record I do have some basic knowledge on using Linux, after all I'm using it for abit over a year now, however its not enought and I have yet to learn some things like Kernel Compilations.