Personal note, to remember the existence of Ubuntu Mini. I usually think of Ubuntu Server as being the minimal installation, but Mini includes Server Edition as one of the extra package collections to add during installation. It’s a netboot, which means that the .iso you download is just enough ubuntu to then download the rest from ‘the cloud’.

http://cdimages.ubuntu.com/netboot/

This netboot image, at least the 18.04 edition, is 64MB. Once installed, the disk usage is 2.0GB. By comparison, a fresh installation of Ubuntu Server 18.04 is 3.6GB, and the install disk is 173MB (the corresponding 20.04 disk is 945MB…not sure what happened there). Only thing I added in each case is the SSH server.

I’d hoped the final installation would clock in at a fraction of a GB, but oh-well. I’m thinking of checking out Alpine Linux next to crack that barrier.