Linux to thumbdrive

I recently got a 2gb thumbdrive, and plan to install linux on it. Have any of you done this before? What would you recommend? I'm hoping for something with a full blown package manager, and some persistance or customizability. Files won't be stored on the drive, so size shouldn't be too much of an issue. Any help/pointers would be appreciated.

http://damnsmalllinux.org/

You can install backtrack3 ono a thumb drive :D It has a package manager and you can use the dir2lzm command to build modules to run at startup so you can save your setting changes. All you have to do is copy the files off the iso onto the drive and run the installmbr.sh script from within the thumb drive.

Theres a guide on their wiki.

www.pendrivelinux.com has tutorials for your linux distro of choice. you can even install PCLinuxOS and Ubuntu on your thumb drive is it's big enough.

lightweight distros: SLAX, Damn Small Linux, Puppy Linux,

you can also install BackTrack or Ophcrack on your thumb drive

how about knoppix?

I'm actually downloading the pendrive linux distro (debian based) right now, so we'll see how that goes.

yeah you can use knoppix, but it's best you use the cd version of it. It can fit into a 1GB thumb drive

You can use almost any of Linux distro on USB providing that: -the BIOS motherboard is set to boot from USB -the pendrive is properly formatted with a bootable flag on. Most of new PC can boot from USB , but not all the laps. Usually pendrive is treated as a hard disc, so it doesn't matter from which you will boot a PC.
Some of pendrives are not bootable though, but those I used were OK ( PQI, Kingston,Pretec ,EMTEC). I've put BT2 and BT3 on pendrive, and the instalator program has done all the job, but with one USB I had to format it manually before the instalation. These were compressed systems as the full BT takes round 3G memory (similar is Knoppix). Full uncompressed system such as Debian or Fedora you can install in text mode ( or server , or minimal ) then will need about 0,5 G , and when it works , you can add Gnome or so, but It will work much slower than from HD, depens from R/W speed of your pendrive. USB stick has limited number of R/W operations then don't make swap on USB. So, you can start with any distro from above posts , if you have futher problems read more about bootloaders LILO (SLAX-based distros ) and GRUB (Debian-based ).

I would definatly reccommend DSL, I used it and I quite liked it to….By far the best option to put on to a pen drive.

Let us know what you choose and how it goes.