I’ve been playing with various Linux distributions. I usually keep a Knoppix CD in my laptop bag so that I can use computers in a particular computer lab I frequent (normally running Win2k, and password protected, but they are still able to boot from a CD 🙂 ). The problem with Knoppix is simply that it’s too damned big. The answer: Damn Small Linux. A mere 50 megabytes of Linux goodness. You can even install it on a USB stick and if your computer can boot from it, voila. (Haven’t tried that yet, probably will soon). If you have infrequent need of Linux, or just like to carry a rescue CD around, you could do a lot worse.