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  1. I use Windows - my company wants me to use Windows
  2. I like Linux
  3. I don't want to use Cygwin
  4. I want a simple portable Linux with a development environment (make, gcc, g++, llvm etc) with a bash and vi. This will be enough for me, I don't need a GUI.

I've tried Damn Small Linux - it's awesome but it doesn't have what I need.

Is there a portable Linux distribution that I can run from Windows using qemu or something with a good up-to-date development environment?

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Do what you are paid to do and use Windows. Why would anyone pay you to develop a private island of computation useless to the rest of the company ? – High Performance Mark Apr 5 '10 at 11:05
I don't know about llvm, but all the other tools you mention are available as native Windows applications - no need for Cygwin. – nb2580 Apr 5 '10 at 11:10
@Mark Yes, this seems a great way of getting the boot. – nb2580 Apr 5 '10 at 11:11
@hi performance mark: i am being paid for what i do. i want to have some hands on experience in coding in the linux environment which unfortunately cant be my primary development environment. so it has to be a virtual environment like qemu/virtual manager etc. i just want to know whether there are any portable linux dev environments alone available. the point is i dont want all the bloat stuff like gui/other apps etc. jus a dev environment – Sriram Apr 5 '10 at 11:14
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Install Ubuntu in a virtual machine and you'll never look back – Sam Post Apr 5 '10 at 11:25
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9 Answers

up vote 4 down vote

Virtual Box + Any Linux Distro. None of them are 'big' in the sense at hand. It's just no big deal to run on any reasonably-configured Windows box.

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up vote 3 down vote

I'm sure you could spend a couple hours and build Arch Linux to your specifications on a flash drive or build it into a virtual machine very easily. I'm pretty happy with it and it's really really easy to build exactly what you want with it, (plus, you don't have to emerge everything like you do with other bottom up distributions).

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up vote 2 down vote

You might want to take a look at andLinux which allows you to run Linux while running Windows (it is not a dual boot or anything, it functions like a program in windows, but can run almost all Linux programs).

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up vote 1 down vote

My first choice would be Virtualbox (as mentioned above). It's not the easiest thing I've ever installed, but it can even run in a mode that lets your X11 windows and Windows windows be next to each other, mostly, which is pretty nice.

But if that's not to your liking, I do know someone who used to rather like Colinux, which did roughly the same thing.

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up vote 1 down vote

Note: Be very careful that you're not violating company policy implementing any of the answers mentioned.

Here's what I do:

  • Windows Virtual Box host
  • Linux Mint Virtual Box guest with Remote Desktop extension turned on
  • RDP into my Home Linux VM from any Windows Computer (work, airport, whatever)

Advantages:

  • It's VM based, so I can run however many different types of linux I want.
  • The VM sits on a home box, so I'm not installing any non-approved programs on my work computer. RDP comes with Windows.

Disadvantages:

  • Slow with GUI stuff. But with emacs -nw, it's fine.
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up vote 0 down vote

Can't you add your own programs to Damn Small Linux, or do a custom console-only install of Ubuntu with only the things you need? Certainly either one of those would fit on a small (by today's standards) USB flash drive.

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DSL is difficult to tweak, mostly because it was prepared years ago and its software is very old. It has different goals though. – liori Apr 16 '10 at 11:41
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up vote 0 down vote

Check out Portable Ubuntu*. It's basically Ubuntu running as an application under Windows (using coLinux.) You should be able to apt-get whatever you need.

NB*: This link has been flaky for me lately, but you should be able to access the Sourceforge page here.

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up vote 0 down vote

grml is a live CD which includes a compiler.

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up vote 0 down vote

You should try Slax

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