Linux on pen drive

Recently I have been traveling quite a lot. and for ease of project development with different machines, i decided to try "mobile workstation" aka linux-os-in-a-pen-drive. It should be easy at first thought but the outcome was quite the opposite, that's why i decided to write down my finding so far.

Ingredient:

1. UNetbootin
2. a 8 GB pen drive
3. a netbook, samsung n220

Desired outcome:

• linux boot from pen drive
• linux run on memory only, after booting the pen drive is free to remove
• fast bootup time
• able to detect network hardware
• able to ssh to remote server
• able to save changes to pen drive

Test Results:

• SliTaz - small foot print, and able to run entirely on ram, claimed by the developer. but failed to boot up my netbook, move on...
• puppy linux - small foot print, fast boot, run on ram, very responsive. but failed to ssh to remote server, always hung at "entering interactive session", move on...
• ubuntu - slow to boot, actual took two step to boot, boot to installer then boot to live mode. yack. move on...
• fedora - ok boot up time, able to ssh, but able to save changes back to pen drive??? really? move on...
• xPud - fast boot up time, run on ram, very simple UI, responsive, but fail to ssh, same as puppy linux. move on...