What I really want is a basic software suite, word processing, web browsing, photo editing, book-keeping, media player and a few standard games. I want that all to run off of a non-writable platform, like a CD perhaps or maybe BIOS, so that it could not be effected by malware, and if it was, it could be reloaded easily. The only thing I want to write to the hard drive is data files, that I could back up.
Then if the thing blows up, it is easy to fix. Such a system would do 99.9% of what I want it to do.
You want Ubuntu Linux. It’s free.
There are several Linux distributions that do exactly what you want, and will run from a CD, or at most a DVD (more likely the latter if you want games and graphics editing).
And they’re free. Ubuntu or its derivative Kubuntu are probably what you want. This month the new long-term support version comes out. It’ll be supported by the community for the next 3 years for desktop implementations (5 for server), so in May or June, most of the initial-release bugs should be cleaned up, and you can just download a bootable DVD from the Ubuntu Linux website and go to town.
Funny you should mention running off a CD — I am currently doing that on my PC using Kubuntu Live CD. I have a PC with WinME that I was going to try this on; then a f’d up update to ZoneAlarm took my WinXP out to lunch — no start of WinXP. Waiting for a replacement HD to arrive (so I can load that with my backup and later access the other drive as a slave to grab my data) I stuck the CD in and it comes up great. Has lots of bells and whistles that I’ll never need, but the base system puts Winders to shame.
Give it a try — go to http://www.kubuntu.org/download.php and burn one then boot from it.
CAUTION: Do not hit the Install Icon on the desktop unless you really want to rewrite your drive.
http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html
I don’t know about photo editing, but the above will do the rest of what you want.
Buy a recent lightly-used laptop and put ubuntu linux on it.