Mulling over the idea of doing backups and basic system de-crufting, I realized I don’t really want to see anyone’s files, their desktop, deal with their menus, funky cursors, sounds, etc. Ideally, I want access to the drive as a pile of bits that I can quickly copy the contents of, verify that I have a copy, and call it good.
I need to be able to boot and run from a USB stick or a CD (preferable the stick, for speed and ease of making updates).
To that end, I am researching bootable USB-based solutions. Looks like Linux is what most people use, but I may take a whack at a FreeBSD-based approach. I won’t need networking, though removing it might be more trouble than it’s worth. A simple console-based interface, perhaps a text menu with some scripted commands, and that’s it.
Anyone done a bootable USB stick? How big of one would I need? 1Gb? 2Gb? Good grief, you can get 32Gb flash drives?