I’m writing up reviews of 5 Linux distros for work and it’s killing me. Linux is both wonderful and completely frustrating, and resolving those two things is hard. Especially when I am trying to be objective. One thing I am really enjoying about some of the Linuxes is their ability to run from USB thumb drives so you can try them out without installing. I really, really love that, with some, the OS can save changes to said USB drive, so I can add programs, tweak settings, etc., and it will be there next time I boot up no matter what computer I’m on. Pocket OS — score!

I also installed the PortableApps platform on an SD card I had in my Eee PC (before I gave it to my niece for Christmas). PortableApps is amazing — lots of great, useful software on an SD card that, again, retains settings and information and leaves no trace behind on the computer you’re using. It’s great for security and supremely useful for me since I test a lot of netbooks and notebooks and don’t want to always install the same core programs over and over.

PortableApps utilizes all open source software, so there are many things I’m not entirely familiar with. But I’m taking it as an opportunity to learn about what’s out there. Of course I know all about Firefox and Thunderbird (which, by the way, everyone should be using instead of MS Office) and Open Office. I’m trying to evaluate whether KompoZer is an adequate substitute for Dreamweaver. GIMP isn’t adequate for anything, alas. There is a dearth of open source photo editing stuff. Someone please correct this!

Anyway, I’m getting very much into my portable OS and apps. Maybe, maybe, maybe it will facilitate my eventual switch to Linux, but I’m extremely dubious about that at this point. Mainly because I’ve had to deal with installing, configuring, and testing five distros in the past month and none of them have been easy or without problems. But that’s a post for another day.