I have an old EeePC 701 4G netbook that I'm about to reconfigure for a friend who needs it to read PDF files, surf the net occasionally and do few other things. I'm going to install Ubuntu Netbook Remix, version 10.4.

Now, the 701 only has four gigabytes of internal storage, and I'm unwilling to spend money on it to expand its memory. When installed UNR takes up about 2.3 gigabytes, which leaves a bit more than a gig available for user data, and that's not much at all.

However, I could copy the live files off the memory stick in the main drive and use the remaining space for a casper-rw partition. Then it'd be only a matter of editing the bootloader in order to have a system that saves changes. This way I could fit the system on only 700 megabytes.

My question is: is there any drawback to running a persistent live off the main drive as the operating system? Something that would make me prefer eating up two thirds of the drive with the system, rather than just a fifth of it?

I imagine upgrades would eventually take up a lot of space, as they'd essentially copy a lot of the system in the live partition, but this is easily solvable by not performing them. I don't think the intended user would miss them, since she'll only really need three or four apps.

Thanks.

At first, not performing updates is a very bad idea. You will not get security updates, and that is not good on a machine connected to the net.
To you space problem: Besides the upgrade problem there is only one drawback that I can see. Running your OS from a compressed filesystem means that your processor has to decompress files that are accessed on this filesystem (if not in cache).

I personally would recommend that you try to install an OS from ground up. Begin with a minimal install and then install what is needed on the system. No need for a full blown desktop, if most of the apps are never used.

Why not SliTaz (30mb), Puppy (100mb), etc. since the drive is so tiny and your friend has such limited needs?

The problem with the persistent "casper" system as I understand it (correct me if I'm wrong) is that it will eventually fill up over time.

+1 to snowpine and tobisgd

there are many problems with the persistent usb and doing upgrades,etc
so, I would recommend either a "frozen" distro like maybe Browserlinux
http://www.browserlinux.com/

or mjnpup
http://www.browserlinux.com/mijnpup/index.html

no need to update either or any puppy, just get a new version
but, same problem with pupsave filling up
however, you can resize a pupsave but will eventually fill up if you do upgrades

this is a problem with any persistent distro because the compressed fs is read-only and so it fills up the save file/partition with new stuff constantly

If you can compromise by doing a full hdd install, then you can do upgrades, etc easily
there are options with installing to usb/SSD like hdd, see here
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php...x_on_a_USB_key

the important part being here
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php..._Read.2FWrites

I did this once with Absolute 13.0 which uses Icewm and I found it acceptable
especially if you incorporate the techniques in that article
if you do a hdd install of a very lite distro like
CTKArchLive
http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Syste...ve-61951.shtml

ArchBang
http://archbang.org/

the important parts are; use a lite window manager (fluxbox/openbox,etc), use a OS that is small by default (arch/slackware), use appropriate techniques for SSD/usb's

I would recommend a hard drive install of lite distro that she can get comfortable with
Slackware or best maybe a Minimilistic install of SalixOS
advantages of slackware/salixos over any other are stability/long-release cycle/infrequent updates