Hi all. I'm looking for some suggestions for a relatively light weight distro to run from an 8gig usb drive through virtual box with backtrack. First I have considered Arch or vector light or maybe something like zenwalk. I also want to save some data on th stick (basically using the drive as a functional H.D. What I am looking for is distro suggestions of distros that have a small footprint Just the basics. I would like some suggestions on other distros that might fit the bill, I would like to stay away from the Buntuus as they seem to becoming bloated. T.I.A.

Puppy (frugal install). More reliable for me than Ubuntu or Fedora with persistence.

8G is about enough to do what you want for simple OS on a stick on any distro. Most of the space is wasted by junk you won't use. An installer where you can select may be a way..

I might consider SuseStudio to create it or other means to select what you want.

Could consider a pendrivelinux.com type of live to usb or custom to usb with persistence.

Thanks guys those are some good suggestions, I had completely forgotten about Puppy Frugal.
I Also want the stick to have it's own bootloader so it is portable not just tied to my computer. I will have to look into virtual to see how I have to modify my current grub set up. I would think I can set up the stick with its own bootloader to stand alone but would this interfere with my booting into my normal grub menu?

I would NOT use Backtrack
it is unsupported and VERY OLD
it will not have any support for new hardware

Almost any new and currently supported "light" version will run on a 8 gig drive

BUT and this might be a deal breaker

USB2 is going to be SO SLOW that the OS might be almost unusable

Kali 1.0.4 on a usb 2 takes 15 sec. to open a new page on this site ( LQ )
sometimes it takes 30 seconds

on a usb3
2 to 3 seconds

I think you misread my post I don't want to run BT on a stick I want another distro I can run on as stick either as a boot able stand alone or through virtual in BT . As for kali I have not gotten around to trying it yet but I have my bt st up the way I like it so I'm sticking with it for now. Very old ? BTr3 was released just over a year ago.