LightDesktop - by Bespin Corp

LightDesktop is a teensy Linux distribution that tries to boot off of the Web. The install/liveCD/liveUSB image is smaller than 32 megs. Because I hate XWindows, it doesn't have it - it uses a Qt running on a framebuffer. It has:

Wireless support
A Webkit-based browser
A terminal (shell)
ssh
...And other stuff

You will be able to make stuff for it too, and run that.

Warning: This software and service are still highly experimental. It could set fire to your computer, or eat all your data. Be careful. No warranties, express or implied.

Here's what we want to be able to do:

Grab an ISO or a USB image, throw it on a CD or a USB stick,

Boot from that,

And then all your stuff is all there for you to use. All your settings, any applications you want, everything.

And it should be speedy, and even work while you're disconnected from the internet (of course a new setup on a new machine wouldn't work disconnectedly, but if you had launched stuff previously, it should).

You could install the OS to the machine if you want (it will be faster, and that's the only way to get offline-mode), or you could choose not to.

You don't 'install' new programs, in the same way you don't 'install' a new web site. They're just 'there'.

You can get an ISO for a CDROM or a fat image for a USB device:

CDROM

USB Thing

To get the USB thingee working, you have to dd it to the partition you want. It will make your flash drive look smaller than it is.

You will want to Sign Up for a storage account to account to play with.

DevLightDesktop.iso broken (as of 12/29/10, experimental work on speeding up back-end filesystem) - the 'development release' - more unstable than the regular release. Experimental customizations with the server-side infrastructure will happen only on this release, so during periods of heavy development, the server may give bad data or debugging info. If you want to play with this, you should be prepared to do reinstalls if things get flaky. Luckily, the install process is very fast.

LightDesktop is a product by Bespin Corp.

I just opened a LightDesktop Tumblog...Tumbleog...Tumblelog...Tumblr thing.. I don't know what that means. Hopefully it's a good thing. I think I made it so that people can ask me questions, and I can answer them, and people can discuss things.

My own personal blog - tends to ramble and be on any number of subjects, of which LightDesktop is only one. Hopefully now that I have the Tumblelog (whatever) going, my personal blog will be less about technical issues and more about "Hey I feel good I - worked on LightDesktop a lot today.' This will please my 6 or 7 blog readers. And they're important to me.