Is there a cd image of ubuntu under 512MB?

Solution 1:

There's Ubuntu minimal. The iso's size is 5-20Mb, but the actual install size is of course larger.

The Minimal CD downloads packages from online archives at installation time instead of providing them on the install CD itself.

Just to add that the final install size can be reduced down to 600MB which will mean a command line system. The same page includes instructions to install low disk space demanding CLI and GUI systems but check the used disk space before continuing from command line system to GUI system.

Solution 2:

If you have Internet access, you could do a netinstall. Loading either billix or netboot.me would facilitate that process, and fit on a 512MB flash drive.

Solution 3:

One possibility is to download and install Madbox 10.10.01 which is a lightweight remix based on Ubuntu 10.10 (32-bit.) The .iso is only 388.2 MGs

http://download.tuxfamily.org/madbox/madbox-10.10/madbox-10.10.01-i386.iso

Once installed make sure that all repositories are enabled in your /etc/apt/sources.list file (remove all # comment markers except the ones in front of the deb-src lines and you might want to change the "br" to "us" if you are us based.)

Then open a terminal and perform a sudo aptitude update The sudo aptitude install ubuntu-netbook (which is the metapackage which will completely install the UNR / UNE version of ubuntu.) Then shutdown and reboot and select the desired interface at logon (probably the netbook one.)

If you prefer LTS, then start with the Ubuntu 10.04 version of Madbox http://download.tuxfamily.org/madbox/madbox-10.04/madbox-10.04.02-i386.iso

This way you will not need to mess around with a command line only install (which is probably not advisable for less then intermediate to advanced users.

Hope this is helpful.

Solution 4:

MadBox: very fast, very nice OpenBox interface, Ubuntu repositories. It's a very minimal system, but perfect if you want to build on a base but don't want to remove loads of stuff first. I actually installed Open Office! It should be perfect for a netbook, and recognises usb mobile broadband dongles.

Debris Linux http://debrislinux.org/ 186.2MB ISO, GNOME/OpenBox

For loads of information, this is THE place: http://distrowatch.com/search.php?category=All&origin=All&basedon=Ubuntu&notbasedon=None&desktop=All&architecture=All&status=Active