I’ve been a long time fan of running GIS applications on flash drives. Now that I’m rolling around with a flash drive that you can’t tell is a flash drive, I always have my GIS apps with me. That said, there is a much easier way to do this than rolling your own apps, Portable GIS. Version 2 was released today and if you have any interest in having GIS apps in a small package, save yourself the time and just go with Portable GIS.
OSGeo gets mobile with Portable GIS