The forum rules imply that my first post needs to be here? I don't know, too much stuff to read makes the result of no one reading them fully anyway.

I'm looking for a small (Puppy-like) distro for the following purposes in order of importance:

- take into account I will not have internet access to install apps constantly;

- first and foremost, ability to run fast from USB pendrive and being able to store PERSISTENT data so I don't have to set things up everytime I boot it.

- it has to come with codecs ready to play mp3/aac audio and mp4/h264 video (mostly downloaded from Youtube to save bandwidth). Player I can install later.

- browsing many tabs including Youtube 480p (currently I use chromium in XP 32bit) and Firefox (only for sites which don't work in Chrome)

- out-of-the-box (or little work to) play emulators (PS1), old Windows games (pre-2000) and Dosbox (usually while listening podcasts in the background), things like GzDoom, Starcraft1, Gran Turismo 2 (playstation emulator)

- convert/encode video files (mostly conversion from mp4-video to mp3-audio so I can listen to stuff on my phone when I'm on the road)

This Linux LiveUSB will not be used frequently, it's only in the case I have HD problems again, since mine already has 6 years usage, in case it happens I want to at least be able to access my files). The reason I'm looking for this is because my currently install of Windows has some problems related to GPU use. For example, in order to convert (encode) a video file I have to close all other applications so the conversion can finish without errors. Sometimes, I need to close browser windows before opening a game, otherwise it won't run. This didn't happen in Win7, but I'm not willing to go back to 7 because it's too bloated and I had to constant closing-reopening programs to free memory (4 Gbs RAM)

My machine is: core2duo@2.1GHz - 4GB RAM - GPU Radeon 512MB

Hello and welcome to LQ.

I don't care for the Live to usb with persistence creators myself. I'd just install some distro like Mint to the usb as if it were a real hard drive. Most modern distro and computers view a usb as a hard drive. It makes it easier to install and update in my opinion. You loose some space and maybe a bit of speed so use fast usb.

From the sounds of it you might even just live with a live dvd.


You could go to SuseSudio and create a distro that has all of what you want and then use tools to image it to a usb.

Lucky for you, asking about a distro is bound to get a lot of good replies and all different.

Well as jefro has quite correctly said, here's my reply;

Most of your requirements would be covered by PCLinuxOS. There is also MyLiveUSB that can be downloaded from it's repo's and installed on the system, as well.

See: https://distrowatch.com/pclinuxos