Quote Originally Posted by Trapper
After more search, investigating and reading I sense Knoppix is what I am looking for. I am going to test drive the HD Knoppix and Beginner installs and see which one best suits my needs. After doing some reading I am of the assumption that the HD Debian install doesn't fit my requirements.
If you want a portable OS to test on different machines and hardware, then you just carry the knoppix cd around with you.
If you need to copy files from the host system then you also need a usb memory stick or take your external hard drive with you. If you use a usb caddy for your hard drive
then the drive will be available to read and write from just like a memory stick.