UBuntu 11.04 Desktop

The Recommended Minimum System Requirements, here, should allow even an inexperienced user to easily install a usable system with enough room to be comfortable. A good "rule of thumb" is that machines that could run XP, Vista, Windows 7 or x86 OS X will almost always be a lot faster with Ubuntu even if they are lower-spec than described below. Simply try Ubuntu CD as a LiveCd first to check the hardware works.

Ubuntu Desktop Edition

• 1 GHz x86 processor
• 1 Gb of system memory (RAM)
• 8 Gb of hard-drive space
• Graphics card and monitor capable of 1024 by 768
• Either a Cd/Dvd-Drive or a Usb port (or both)
• Internet access is helpful

Hardware produced in the last few years or with an efficient architecture or machines built for a specific purpose can often work well with less. For example, a netbook with an 8GB SSD will work well although there wont be much room for saving stuff directly onto the drive so Ubuntu's free 2GB Cloud could help a lot. A machine with a crumbling, 15 year-old, slow, 8GB, IDE hard-drive probably won't and doesn't really compare with the netbook anyway.

Machines that are 10 years old or more and that don't meet these guideline will probably require some work to revive; the obvious choice would be to try a lighter-weight distro rather than try a minimal install of Ubuntu. Obviously we hope that a distro such as Xubuntu (see below) can keep you in the official Ubuntu group or one such as Lubuntu or Debian might keep you in the same family. However it might be worth looking further afield at distros such as sliTaz (slightly French) or in extreme cases Puppy. Explore from the main pages at DistroWatch
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Download UBuntu 11.04