After much begging, cajoling, threatening and saving every last cent I finally saved enough money to buy one of those beautiful 1GB USB thumb drives.

So I did.

Now it sits on my desk ready to be stuffed with apps / backups / and ofcourse a bootable Linux partition. My plan is to partition 25 - 40 % of the space as an ext3 partition and load Linux on it and keep the rest as a FAT32 partition to hold various applications such as Firefox / Tor etc.

All links / suggestions / comments are welcome, especially recommendations for applications to load which I might need when travelling / using someone else's computer.

PS. Please post links to any suggestions / articles.

If you want to install linux on the flash drive, I strongly reccomend puppy linux. Can't say enough good things about it and its install-to-flash utility.

My number one suggestion is be very careful when it's plugged into a machine. I'm on my second 1GB thumb drive. I bumped my first one while it was plugged into my machine at work and broke several of the solder connections on the circuit board inside. I managed to recover all the data by squeezing the drive really hard to make up all the connections. It was only a few months old and it hurts tossing a $50 item in the trash when it's 98% functional!!

Ouch. Yeah, especially with laptops... laptops on laps and thumbdrives definitely do not mix.

More so when the USB slot happens to be in the front like mine is. Never use that one though preferring the right-hand side ones instead.

A bit off topic, but I recommend using a USB extender cable. This virtually eliminates the problems of ripping your thumb drive in half because it's sticking out the side of your computer. Like many others, I had a USB slot on the front of my system and managed to step on it, destroying the thumb drive and doing virtually no damage to the USB slot.

For desktops, extender cables are nice. On laptops, its just one more thing to fill up the laptop bag with.