Please don't let this discourage you from trying Linux based systems, but I do not approve of your reason and will remind you that your actions taken to attempt to work around established IT policies can easily backfire. With that said you have had some good questions that I will answer in hopes that you will learn something and use it for a positive project.

You are correct that windows based applications generally do not run well under Linux based systems if at all, that is because the binaries and dependent libraries are different between the OSs. There are applications like wine or crossover that emulate a windows environment but the experience on various applications differ.

You can install some distros to USB drives, but they are generally in a persistent state that will not save any files or changes. The performance on a usb medium is lagging because it is being read from a limited medium and must store more in memory. You could look at slax which allows you to choose the specific packages and build a custom usb or livecd based installation, this would be the best option for simplicity.

However, on the computers you are looking to run it from the bios may be locked stopping you from booting from an external device such as cd or usb. So all efforts to accomplish this task may be in vain for that location, but it can still be used on personal computers such as your own computer or family members computers.

In addition, the facility will most likely have tools on the network that are monitoring for unknown patterns such as an unapproved OS or the applications on it, so the act of booting a Linux based system may be enough for them to track you.

I guess I can add some input ;)

The decision to use virtualbox from within windows or have a dual boot system comes with a few item to question.

1. Any Os in virtualbox will have limited performance compared to a native dual boot installation. The processes will be slower and applications that require 3d acceleration may not work properly, so for gaming that would kill the potential. What is more important to you, being able to quickly switch between OSs or have proper performance without the potential of a window error taking out both OSs?

2. With a virtual installation you can open the same file on both operating systems if the file is being shared through a network file share, local access is restricted to a single OS at a time.

3. You will want to install windows first, but with limited space. This is because windows will always overwrite any bootloader on the system and because resizing a partition can lead to lost data or limitations on the minimized size. Starting windows with the correct smaller partition will help you to avoid those problems.

Also, on the recommendation of using a liveCD to play, it works well in theory but the performance loss is substantial, a native or virtual installation would deliver a much better experience.

Please report back with any additional questions.

Sorry for the lack of input, but nearly any distro will work for you. Your choice or arch is very good as it will provide a fast small installation.

It you will be using it to consume media locally then I would like to recommend installing xbmc ( http://xbmc.org/ ) onto the system for a clean interface, xbmc is in their repos and you can find an installation guide at https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/XBMC

If you are interested in developing for the Linux kernel then I advise for you to join the kernel.org mailing-list and review their archives to see what has been discussed. All official development and kernel communication is done on kernel.org

Welcome to the community, I have already responded on your other post about merging pdf files.

I was originally thought about using imagemagik, but it would be slow. I recommend looking at the thread at http://superuser.com/questions/54041/how-to-merge-pdfs-using-imagemagick-resolution-problem , of the solutions using pdftk sounds like the easiest method to me.