[GTALUG] looking for a general purpose boot media to keep in case of distasters

[bitmap]

I'd really like to have a good USB key to boot from when some kind of problem happens. Typically I use whatever installation media is lying around but they have really limited tools available. Not to mention tres obnoxious defaults like transparent terminals. Drive me nuts when some catastrophe is going on and the terminal is resetting to 50% opacity at every reboot.

Is there some kind of general purpose image that has a variety of programs, maybe even foundational documentation on board, etc, that is designed for this? There are images like clonezilla to solve specific problems but that's another story. I would like a multi tool on hand. 

My research tells me that by booting from USB media, it's possible to install on a connected drive of any sort. Normally you use the internal hd but can use another external drive. Then you have a persistent bootable USB where you can install stuff + store files. *However* it is unique to that device so it'd be required to set up a USB key for each one. Not ideal although possibly worthwhile for the main computer. 

Any advice on this issue? Seems like I wouldn't have been the first person to have this idea. Is it a bad idea? Why? If not, how to set up?
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