[nzlug] have you seen this: linutop

[Simon Bridge]

On Mon, 2008-03-10 at 17:10 +1300, Steve Withers wrote:
> If it can access and happily use external USB hard drives or can handle
> removable flash memory via a slot - or both - that would be cool.
That's the beauty of it... it does! As well as the other things you
expect of a basic desktop. They'll also sell you a bracket to mount on
the back of a monitor.

OTOH: they advertise that the OS is read-only. It's basically an ubuntu
live disk. (They also say you can add more applications if you don't
like the standard set, presumably in an extra key...)

However, this kind-a rules out distro upgrades.
Though I imagine it will boot off an external HDD as well.