I don't know how well the newest Knoppix installs to HD, but it should
work pretty well by now, flash USBs or cards are HDs, should work.
While Puppy Linux installs easily to a CF card in an IDE adapter, and it isn't especially hard to install Knoppix-based DamnSmall Linux Embedded on one (I'm posting from it on a Portege 3010CT/96MB) being able to easily drop a bootable Knoppix image on a CF card without creating a swapfile on that card would be nice.
1GB cards are inexpensive, getting steadily cheaper, and a run-from-CF Linux laptop is quiet and does not use much battery power.
I don't know how well the newest Knoppix installs to HD, but it should
work pretty well by now, flash USBs or cards are HDs, should work.
If CF would survive being used for a swap file that would be no problem.
CF cards are not conventional hard drives, and swap must be in ram in order not to damage them.
A poormans install would not hurt the flash, but that's not what you wanted.
You'd have to specify: NO swap, or have a swap partition on another drive.
Lets face it, the install has nothing to do with the flash drive swap problem.
I've been running my knoppix 3.4 remaster off of compact flash for almost a year, and I could never go back to liveCD. (Except now that I need to upgrade to 3.8.1 and start over with my customizations, since I want UNIONFS)
Knoppix off CF is not only faster (almost as fast and cheaper than the TORAM option), and you have none of that spontaneous CD activity when you are surfing, and you don't have to limit yourself to 700 Mb when you remaster. I have a 1 Gb CF and plan to upgrade to a 2 Gb CF so that I can add many more packages.
I sure hope knoppix 3.8.1 with UNIONFS doesn't have issues when installed to CF.
For an excellent guide on how to install knoppix to CF, see http://staff.washington.edu/gray/KnoppixCFguide.html
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