Originally Posted by Thrush
also, by having this CD, does that mean I can boot up a computer that doesn't even have a HDD in it? So say I had a system complete except for a HDD, boot up using the Ubuntu CD, and access files (music, video etc) from a USB HDD?
Yes this is correct, obviously your ability to play the files depends upon what codecs you have installed for this purpose such as DivX
A typical example of use... My work used to lock down the Windows installation I used and limit what I could do and what I could access on the net. To get around this I made a Linux disk complete with thumb drive which had available my favorite codecs and browsers (divX, Flash Player, Firefox etc) and booted the system from this.
This allowed me to do exactly what I required and access any area of the net without placing any information which could be recovered onto the computer hard disk.
When I surf from my media centre I also use a CD as I do not want cookies, popups and other general internet crap on this system.