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.

I couldn't have built this if it weren't for all of the fantastic open source software that's out there:

Linux - the kernel. Love ya Linus!
CentOS - my build system lives on this
RedHat - the guys who make CentOS possible
BusyBox - tiny awesomeness
QtSoftware (formerly Trolltech) - makes for the pretty
GRUB - for yummy booting
SYSLINUX - because getting GRUB to work on a USB stick was making me crazy
Basically, everything ever made by the GNU Project - these guys are nuts, but brilliant and ridiculously useful
PHP - (use it for server-side customizations) - a working-man's programming language. Too often discounted.
Apache - an...adequate webserver...that serves webs...pretty ok...
davfs2 - to mount your DAV stores

And there's other stuff I bet I'm forgetting.