Recently, operating systems are getting more and more powerful as well as complicated. An operating system now usually comes complete with most essential applications - web browser, calculator, some games, email client, instant messenger (with VoIP), media player, word processor (or even an office suite), graphic editor etc etc.

Another main feature for OSes these days is the ability to keep itself updated via internet, as evidenced by the whole folder worth of Security Updates from Microsoft eversince you installed Windows, probably already amounted to more than a gigabyte in total.

In the past, some tech-savvies have been trying to come up with ways to create portable medias in order to lug around their favourite operating system. For the old Applesoft and DOS, they are basically portable OSes, existing on each and every floppy discs. From Windows 3.1 onwards to the recent WinXP. The whole world have been trying to create a personal bootable CDs that run on almost every if not majority of the PCs.

So what if I’m going to tell you that you can now have a decent operating system stored in your 1GB (probably worth less than MYR 50.00) thumbdrive?

The moment you plug your thumbdrive into a PC, any PC for that matter, chances are that you’ll have your entire favourite operating system with you on that PC, together with all your favourite applications.

And after you unplug your thumbdrive, nobody (hopefully) will ever realise that you’ve been there before. In another word, you left no trace on that PC you’ve just used.

Ubuntu has this bootable LiveCD that you can insert into any PC to have a taste of a Linux system. But it’s just a CD, not rewritable. You can’t customize it. It will behave just like itself previously, immaculately, everytime you boot it.

So, how do you store the Ubuntu system in a thumbdrive and at the same time, remember what you’ve done and remember whatever programs that you’ve installed, at every booted session?