xPUD may not be the first light weigh Linux distribution to take up less than 50MB of disk space. But it's certainly one of the simplest, fastest Linux distributions I've seen. And that's largely because it's still in the early stages of development and doesn't support a ton of hardware or software yet. But it's still pretty nifty watching a computer boot a full operating system complete with a web browser, media player, and BitTorrent client in just about 10 seconds. You can see it for yourself after the break.

The operating system has a kiosk-style user interface. In other words, there's no start menu and desktop. Instead, there are a few tabs on the left side of the screen that let you tweak the settings, launch applications, or access files. Right now there are only a handful of applications available and when you click the utility for adding new apps, you get a message telling you the feature hasn't been implemented yet.

You can install xPUD to your hard drive, although I wouldn't really recommend it. Or you can download a ZIP file and prepare a bootable USB flash drive to boot the OS without installing it.

There's also an unimplemented feature labeled "Switch Mode" that lets you "toggle into other OS," which makes me think the goal is to develop xPUD as a quick-boot style operating system like Splashtop or HyperSpace. It could coxisting peacefully on a hard drive with Windows, Ubuntu, or another operating system and give you access to a handful of programs a few seconds after you hit the power button. If you need more power, you'd toggle operating systems and boot into a full desktop environment.

Note: The xPUD download servers were extremely slow when I last tried them. But the files are mirrored at the following site (you'll have to copy and paste the URL, clicking doesn't work):

http://www.hp-umpc.com/xpud/

Check out the xPUD boot sequence after the jump.

[via Liliputing Forums]

Linux is great to use at home. It can be handy at work. It's a great server operating system. But there's one other place that Linux is really worth its weight in gold: public, or semi-public, computers. There's nothing quite as nerve-wracking as seeing someone on a computer you're responsible for, and wondering what exactly they're up to. Except for maybe seeing someone you're responsible for on a computer, and wondering the same thing.

Public computers are pretty easy to visualize -- in places like internet cafés, libraries, or school computer labs. Semi-public computers are a little more obscure. Semi-public users can be any group from the temp workers in your office to your house guests or kids. The real function you'd want in any of these settings is control of some sort. You want the computer to stay in the condition it was in originally, at least as far as software goes. You might not want the users to have access to certain applications, or maybe they should access the internet through a proxy.

There are a number of ways to achieve this sort of set up. Before you shake your head and start wondering how exactly you're supposed to change login and desktop scripts... Relax. KDE's Kiosk is a pretty simple way to lock down a desktop.

Right now, it appears that Kiosk is still being ported to the KDE4 framework, so you'll have to stick with an older version of KDE for locked down desktops. Since most distros that feature a KDE4 desktop tend to still include KDE 3.5.x alongside it, this shouldn't be an issue.