Linux at Your Fingertip
Finnish software developer Jerry Jalava uses Linux on a USB stick, although in a rather unusual way: the USB is part of his prosthetic finger.
Jerry Jalava lost his left ring finger in a motorcycle accident in May 2008. When the hand surgeon found out that Jalava was a hacker, he suggested enhancing his replacement prosthesis with a USB "finger drive." Jalava agreed to the idea and now wears a 2-GByte removable "You-SB" silicon finger that he can plug into his laptop and pick up again when he's done.
Linux users would be happy to know that Jalava has the multi-boot distro Billix constantly at his fingertip. Billix derives from Damn Small Linux 4.2.5 and brings with it USB Linux netinstalls for Ubuntu, CentOS, Debian and various other distros.
Jalava seems to have another prosthesis he replaces it with when the USB is in the drive, one that acts as a regular digit. He also plans another attachment with a replaceable fingertip and integrated RFID chip.
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.

News
-
Go-Based Botnet Attacking IoT Devices
Using an SSH credential brute-force attack, the Go-based PumaBot is exploiting IoT devices everywhere.
-
Plasma 6.5 Promises Better Memory Optimization
With the stable Plasma 6.4 on the horizon, KDE has a few new tricks up its sleeve for Plasma 6.5.
-
KaOS 2025.05 Officially Qt5 Free
If you're a fan of independent Linux distributions, the team behind KaOS is proud to announce the latest iteration that includes kernel 6.14 and KDE's Plasma 6.3.5.
-
Linux Kernel 6.15 Now Available
The latest Linux kernel is now available with several new features/improvements and the usual bug fixes.
-
Microsoft Makes Surprising WSL Announcement
In a move that might surprise some users, Microsoft has made Windows Subsystem for Linux open source.
-
Red Hat Releases RHEL 10 Early
Red Hat quietly rolled out the official release of RHEL 10.0 a bit early.
-
openSUSE Joins End of 10
openSUSE has decided to not only join the End of 10 movement but it also will no longer support the Deepin Desktop Environment.
-
New Version of Flatpak Released
Flatpak 1.16.1 is now available as the latest, stable version with various improvements.
-
IBM Announces Powerhouse Linux Server
IBM has unleashed a seriously powerful Linux server with the LinuxONE Emperor 5.
-
Plasma Ends LTS Releases
The KDE Plasma development team is doing away with the LTS releases for a good reason.