Well for my Creative & Media Diploma course i get a free macbook to use on the course and off. And while my current desktop will remain my main computer, i can imagine using this in some situations. The problem is this: I hate OSX. It's clunky and overly annimative. So i want to use a Linux Distro in my free time. The catch is this: It's administrator locked. I can't install any new programs from .exe files. Also, i'd rather have it bootable from a USB stick, and run entirely in the RAM so i don't have to install it (and probably get shouted at). I know a lot of Distros that do this (Tiny Core, DSL, Puppy, Feather, Arch etc.) but i just want to hear your opinion.

Also, once i've chosen said distro i'd like to know how to actually boot from it. Any help here would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance

Why not just make a small partition and not tell them? When you're done with it, delete the partition.

Because it has a screen monitor, and they check it every time i use their network. They're being completely overprotective, i had to sign a form saying i wouldn't do anything knowingly that might hard it in any way. I always liked the idea of having a pen drive distro as well...

Being Ubuntu my favourite distro, I'll say go for Ubuntu. It can be booted from an USB drive.

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/ubuntu-810-pe...l-from-live-cd/

Meh, i prefer either Mint or Crunchbang if i was going for something Ubuntuesque. Wouldn't a lightweight distro be better for not installing though, since a lot of them can exist entirely in the RAM? And i just found out about the Seagate Pocket Hard Drive, would that be a good device to boot it off? Not sure about the actual read speeds though, and the linux compatibility... or the noise it makes.

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/run-ubuntu-fr...usb-hard-drive/

?

owate that's windows. Omg Macs why you gotta be so mean.

http://www.simplehelp.net/2007/04/27/how-t...te-walkthrough/

Well that's for Feisty, but it shouldn't be too different than Jaunty.

Honestly I think getting over your OSX dislikes is much better than running a distro off an external drive. From my experiences it's horribly slow and inconvenient

Not pen drive distros, which as small enough to run entirely in the RAM, being a lot faster than a regular hard drive. With a larger distro such as Ubuntu it's a lot slower. Besides, speed isn't the main problem here. It's ease of use.

I tried a PenDriveLinux, its exactly like running normal but you have the speed of flash stick.
Its a better speed if its a high quality drive.

Basicly, PDL = any Linux distro, you wont notice too much difference, and if you store the systems data on the drive, it wont affect speed too much.
Its just another way of installing it in PDL.