On 18/04/2008, David Anderson <lists@???> wrote:
> I need to go to a customer's house to do some web design work. I need
> to use her PC, but would like to run a web server to showcase the work.
>
> What I want is to install a Linux system onto a USB flash (8GB) and run
> both the web server and a desktop from that stick. I am not sure
> whether the PC can boot from a USB stick though.
>
> So, two questions:
>
> 1. What distro, and how do I get it on the stick, and
>
> 2. How do I boot up if the PC will not boot from USB?
If there's a chance that the PC will not boot from USB, you could
always boot from a Live CD and use the USB stick to store the copy of
the website. Ubuntu, for example, has a feature called live CD
persistence [1]. I'm sure other distros and live CDs have their own
mechanisms for doing this.
Booting off live media on an unknown PC will involve work up front to
set up and test the media, a fair bit of waiting around for things to
boot up on site, may disconcert your customer if you appear to be
installing strange software on her PC and there's a risk that things
will not go according to plan if, for example, the hardware is not
fully supported.
I would suggest that it might be easier and look more professional to
simply make your work available on a public webserver, perhaps behind
some form of authentication. The only thing you'll need to check
before the demo is that the site works in your client's current
browser.
Regards,
Graham
[1]
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LiveCDPersistence/
