Which Linux distros are portable currently?
 

Hello everyone.

I am searching for a Linux distro that can be used in a portable way. I would like to show it as an example to my students. I tried portable Ubuntu but I found it too slow ( or maybe is the host machine the guilty one).

Thank you in advance.

Puppy is designed from the ground up to be portable, and comes in more varieties and offshoots than I can count.

Porteus --- http://www.porteus.org/

Welcome to LinuxQuestions.

Portable Ubuntu is a special distribution that uses the colinux kernel. In simple terms it runs in parallel with windows and looks like a regular application. I've never played with a colinux distribution but a standard one can be converted. I believe it only works with XP/Vista/7 32bit OS.

A live CD/DVD or live USB drive might be a better choice. Almost all current distributions can run from either a disc or flash drive and only runs from memory i.e. does not modify the hard drive. Mint is the most popular at the moment.

Knowing the specifications of the computers would help.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooper...x#Distribution

http://sourceforge.net/projects/freetzlinux/

Thank guys.

But now Im confused: whats the difference between portable and live USB/CD/DVD?

Thanks again

It might be better to ask what you meant by portable in your original question. In other words, what properties of a distribution would constitute portability for your purposes, as opposed to someone else's concept of portability.

At one time linux could not easily be moved between hardware. After some long time it finally was pretty easy to take one install and run it on a completely different system. Unfortunately times are moving backwards. It is possible that you may have to use some tweaks to get a system moved but that is generally only an issue with video.

So, portable in my opinion is the ability to move an install. The live cd's tend to do a great job in this respect. They are generally the slowest even though they compress a filesystem on a cd. If you make a live usb from a live cd they tend to be much faster if you used a good drive.

When you make a normal usb install it could end up being slower than a live usb from a live cd as they don't compress the filesystems.

I have Puppy Linux on a usb memory stick.
It goes with me to friends and family's houses so I can show them Linux.

That's one way of portability.

You can download and format a usb pendrive and make it bootable with just about any Linux distribution.
<OR> burn the .iso file of a distribution to a CD/DVD and take the Live CD with you to show your students.

http://www.linuxliveusb.com/
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/deskt...ick-on-windows
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_t...d_use_Live_USB

I believe you are really looking for a 'live' distro, (most are these days), where you can plug it into a variety of machines & get up & running. A good example is AntiX MX, http://antix.mepis.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

Most of the Linux Distros can be installed on 8 GB Pen Drive.Linux OS on USB has got a advantage of storing files in Home folders,which is not possible in case of Live USB.You can store text files,spred sheets,music and videos on USB.After installing OS on USB ( 8 GB) there is still 3.500 GB space left on USB.
For demonstration purpose it is advantageous to have all sort of files on same USB.
I would recomend Linux Mint 17 Cinemon,for easy to operate main menu.

Portable in the sense of "not meant to be installed" would be Knoppix, Puppy, and Slax. Most Linux distros can be run live - ie.e from a DVD/CD/USB device - and many will allow data to be stored on the USB stick, so the distinction between them and the custom portables is not as clear as it used to be. There are differences, though. The true portables are designed to load into RAM for much faster operation and, if you use the USB, you can configure them and even (in the case of Puppy and Slax) add more software.

If you want to astonish your students, show them Knoppix. That has an incredible amount of software: a choice of 3 different GUIs, a complete office suite, pixel and vector graphics editors, CAD, desktop publisher, accounting, 4 different email clients, games, educational programs for young children, etc, etc. It's good example of how much less space Linux software takes up, thanks to shared libraries.

If you want to amuse them, show them Puppy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDTLJYDHX3g

Hello.

Thank you for answers, I think I have plenty of stuff to choose from.

Your Welcome.

When done don't forget to mark your thread solved.