Running chess engine(s) from a pendrive

[Albert Silver]

I just saw this interesting tidbit:

Android on USB drives

Android, the Linux flavored OS for netbooks and mobile machines, has just had a special version released that can run directly from a pendrive. The idea of apps running directly from a pendrive is not new, and many softwares exist, but here is a full OS, speedily booted.

I admit that even full OSes booting from a pendrive are not new, but usually have serious caveats unless they are made for a specific machine, not to mention dreadful boot times, and very large installation bases. Questiion is whether anyone has tried this running a chess engine. I'm going to install Android on one of my Pendrives and see how it fares, but would be curious about running a nice little engine on it too.

How to install Android on USB drive

Albert

[Zach Wegner]

Of course you can, you can run a full OS with no restrictions off a USB drive. Works pretty well. I'm not sure what problems you're talking about. It works exactly the same as a normal hard drive, and doesn't seem any slower to me (boots in about 20 seconds). Most Linux distributions should fit on one. I don't understand why you would need the whole "live" thing. Just install directly on the USB.

My testing cluster runs off USB drives, since they are very cheap and use less power than hard drives. I just have to periodically copy/delete the games from them, since 2 GB can't hold too much.

[Graham Banks]

ChessGUI can be run from a pendrive. Very easy to do. I've run several games through this method.