I am a cognitive psychologist concerned with computerized training in public schools. We have 24 laptops running Winders XP that will show .avi files to children in the classrooms. Since computer performance is mission-critical, and being the skeptic that I am, I wish to have a backup in case XP crashes on one or more of the laptops. Thus, the linux on a flash drive option. I'm curious if any or all of the tiny distros have .avi support, and if so, which you would recommend, or, failing that, why this backup plan won't work in the first place. Thanks so much for your suggestions!

there are alot of linux distros that run from cd that have avi support if this would help.

you can get many distros running of a usb drive, but the only one i have ever tried succesfully wwas puppy, i picked up a magazine a year or so ago from apc labs and they had instructions on how to get DSL, Puppy, Feather and i think one more. good luck, i would like to help as much as possible, any questions pm me an ill go dust of the mag LOL

SLAX would be by far the eaisest to do on a FLASH drive and it supports .avi

Download SLAX here

And download "My SLAX Creator" here

Very simple to do.

I've used SLAX on a USB drive too, works really good. I'm very impressed with the preformance off a little USB port. SLAX on a USB stick even has KDE and everything too, very nice. Otherwise try Puppy or DSL.