Hi, I have been toying with Linux lately and find it very interesting. I need to know if a few things are possible. I am playing with DSL and have booted it from a live cd. Maybe saved a config on a pen drive I think. Is it possible:
to connect to my wireless router?
can I set up some "extensions" or applications on a pen drive?
Can I find applications that would allow me to read files on my windows disk?

I will get to the how to later, just would like to know if I can do this with linux that may boot off of a pen drive.

Thanks,
curt

Hi curt,

Welcome to LQ!
Depends - mostly on your chipset; Linux has good support
for some chipsets, mediocre for others.

Again - depends. If you have a) a fixed mountpoint for your
pen-drive and b) path(s) set-up that point at it and c) the
application is happy to install into e.g. /opt rather than
your /usr directory sturcture: yes. :}


And again: it depends: if the files made by windows apps
aren't too exotic, or have a Linux counterpart: yes. It's
easier to answer if you specify which extensions/file-types
you're talking about opening in Linux.



Cheers,
Tink

P.S.: I moved your thread from Intros to Newbie as it holds
actual technical questions as well as the intro.

Thanks for the reply and the interest. I haven't found the chipset info yet. I am now working with an HP Pavilion dv9700 note book, with an AMD Turion 64 X2 mobile technology TL-60 2.00 GHz with 2.00 GB ram. It has a Broadcom 4321AG 802.11a/b/g/draft-n Wi-Fi Adapter.

Not sure what you mean by fixed mount-point. Do you mean having the pen drive in the same socket or having it inserted prior to boot? Applications I would mainly want are Open Office, Firefox and some type of app to work with photos, at least at this time.

Again thanks for the interest. Should I take this to the DSL distribution forum?

One other questions, I last night I ran across a comment that DSL is no longer being developed, should I look at another. Kinda want one I can install on a pen drive if possible.

Why DSL ?. USB drives are given away these days - use a "normal" distro that offers all the bells and whistles and supports saving files (persistence).
Have a look at the info on offer here

Welcome to LQ!!!

I recommend an actively supported Linux distribution, and one with more stuff to it.

All of those are easily possible.

For installing to a Pen Drive, (called persistent Live USB);

http://pendrivelinux.com

Most distributions come with with NTFS support. ~ You have to mount it first

Yes, you can definitely use Linux with your wifi card. At least 95% of them. How else would we Linux users, who use it exclusively, connect to the World Wide Web?!

I have confirmed that your Wireless Card will work using Google. If the distribution you use does not detect it automatically, we may be able to configure it to work. However, most of the solutions I found may need you to install it to your HDD. Its likely it may just work, so give it a try!

Have fun with Linux!

A dsl installsupports persistence.

Welcome. Darn someone said Pendrivelinux.com already.

I'd go to distrowatch and see the top 100 maybe. Almost all have so called live cd/dvd's. Sadly DSL is getting old and unmaintained.

If you have a fast enough computer your second step may be to install a Virtual Machine. It is a very safe way to run Windows and Linux at the same time. See VMware's VMplayer 3, Sun's Virtualbox, MS's VirualPC or even QEMU.