http://www.ctcms.nist.gov/fipy/download/reeveFiPyLinuxImage.iso

I have created a disk image that can be installed on an 8 GByte thumb drive. By installing this onto a usb thumb drive, and then booting this thumb drive through the computer's boot menu, you will be put into a fully functional linux (Arch Linux) system that contains FiPy, text editor, and associated python software (among other things). The 'wicd' program (type 'wicd-curses' in a termial window) on the thumb drive can be used to access a wireless network and the pacman package manager can be used to update/add software on the thumb drive. The image must written to the 8 Gbyte thumb drive using a low level copying program, such as 'dd' or 'rawrite'. Care should be taken to not copy over your hard drive! All data on your thumb drive will be overwritten when using these programs.

1) access your bootloaded when logging onto your computer by hitting the appropriate button when booting up. The button you need to hit to do this seems to vary with the make of the computer.

2) When you access the linux bootloaded, there are four options coresponding to different device names (sda, sdb, sdc, and sdd). Load the one that corresponds to the usb port on your computer. On the laptops I've used, 'sdb' has been to correct device name to use.

3) I think gmsh is also in the thumb drive,

4) mayavi2 has not been added to the thumbdrive, but can be added using the 'yaourt' package manages which automated building packages from source.

Let me know if people actually use these. I'd be willing to update the images one or twice a year if people find them useful.

Andy