As I travel a lot and like to be 'light', I use various computers to look at my data from a portable hard drive, instead of carrying a laptop with me everywhere. Well, I used to go around with my laptop, but invariably the machine would break down on me, too heavy to carry around and leaving it at the hotel poses a security risk etc...

So I've decided that not only my files, but also my OS and ideally my main programs (mainly Office, MS money etc...) should sit on my hard drive and the computers I use should boot from there (well, whenever they can boot from a USB port) directly into my preferred environment

After surfing the web, the closest solution I can find to it is Knoppix. This said, before I go ahead, I'd like to ask if anyone has done that before, and if that's possible. I'm not an IT pro so any experience would be helpful

I'd have some ancillary questions too: whether office files can be read in Knoppix (what about MS Outlook?), and whether MS applications like MS Money can be installed (I doubt it thought). I'm happy to shift to new programs if that's what it takes, however is there any that runs for KNOPPIX?

In short, I don't want to Knoppix for repairs only, which seems its main mission, I want to use it as my main OS with my basic non-hardware dependent applications.

This, my friends, is the future. I say let's free the OSs from technical configuration dependence.