Hi everyone, I have been using a particular configuration of Linux that has attracted the attention of many of my colleagues who are sworn windows users. My computer consists of a small pocket-size 500 GB USB hard drive. The drive contains 4 partitions:
/boot swap (encrypted) / (encrypted) /home/ (encrypted) I can plug it into virtually any 64 machine and it boots up with my system. At home I plug it into my laptop. At the lab I plug it into a University desktop. There remains only 2 issues to be addressed: 1) The drive is USB 3 but only works in USB 2 sockets. When I plug it into a USB 3 socket, the machine sees the boot directory with the initrd and kernel, but after loading, it swithches to the USB 2 looking for the remaining partitions. Odd. 2) NVDIA proprietary drivers have to be incorporated in such a way that they don't conflict with the other available video drivers. This almost works. Completing this project I believe to be important because of the potential impact on the use of computers in general: 1) When assembling a new computer one doesn't have to load an operating system. Once the hardware is assembled the system's immediately ready to go. 2) It easy to carry around a small USB drive instead of a laptop. If this were to become universal, one might not have to carry around a laptop any more. 3) One only needs an inexpensive system to backup the drive. Anyone interested in helping with the remaining issues? -Don -- Don Schmadel, Ph.D. Research Scientist Department of Physics Physics Building University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 301-405-6141
