If it's truly surplus hardware they can be for casual distribtion too.
Also when you set your motherboard for BIOS mode, you can boot to DOS not much differently than from a floppy.
A lot faster I/O and holds lots more DOS games than a stack of floppies though ;)
k310•4mo ago
2. Sneakernet. For friends who have only a USB slot.
3. Backing up encrypted password vaults.
4. Just plain sharing 50MB photos. See (2)
[0] https://tails.net/
fuzzfactor•4mo ago
Mainstream Linux distributions can get right on the internet after booting to their live "install" USB drive too. Without making another move or installing anything to the PC whatsoever. For instance if you wanted to use a Windows machine for more popular forms of Linux occasionally without actually having to make it a dual-boot PC.
Linux basically runs from memory after it's booted from the official USB like this. If you only need a package or two that's not on the live USB, they download and install real quick but do disappear when you power down the memory.
IIRC it was posted here that Tails has a persistent feature to retain your packages on the USB through reboots.
That may be possible to add to a thing like Mint for average users but I just tell them it's a temporary Linux trial (do not install) and any valuable downloads need to be saved on a separate old USB that only had to be big enough to hold it. Plus your memory needs to be big enough to hold all your downloads too beforehand, which is not needed when Linux not running from USB. But most people have enough memory now.
Mint will still fit on a 4GB USB and there's plenty of those plus 8GB and up not being used that are pretty good for this if they are USB3. USB2 is not even that bad because I have some, and the booting is slower but afterward not much difference since it's already in memory by then.
Let people try it, and I have found that many like it.