I think the reason we haven't heard many complaints about the doing away of physical media is exactly this. As long as power users can make their own offline media, there's nothing to complain about.

If your Chromebook does not boot into the operating system anymore, you can create a recovery USB flash drive and use it to reinstall a copy of Chrome OS on your computer. Google provides a tool ...

Like Lion (OS X 10.7) before it, Mountain Lion (OS X 10.8) doesn’t ship on a disc—it’s available only as an installer app downloadable from the Mac App Store ...

A bootable Mac OS X thumb drive comes in handy when you need to troubleshoot OS issues for yourself, your family, or your friends. It’s also extremely useful for keeping your basic setup consistent ...

Mavericks (OS X 10.9) doesn’t ship on a disc. Instead, it’s available only as an installer app downloadable from the Mac App Store, and that installer doesn’t ...

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25537273#p25537273:i88v4p9p said: barefootguru[/url]":i88v4p9p]For Mountain Lion I just ran the installer to put a ...