Ultimate Edition Linux 2.5
Hardware Requirements & Installation
Hardware Requirements
As with the “What’s New” information, I could not locate any Ultimate Edition 2.5 hardware requirements. So I’ll defer to the generic Ubuntu 9.10 hardware requirements:
Minimum System Requirements:
300 MHz x86 processor
64 MB of system memory (RAM)
At least 4 GB of disk space (for full installation and swap space)
VGA graphics card capable of 640×480 resolution
CD-ROM drive or network card
Recommended Requirements:
700 MHz x86 processor
384 MB of system memory (RAM)
8 GB of disk space
Graphics card capable of 1024×768 resolution
Sound card
A network or Internet connection
Note that according to the Ubuntu 9.10 release notes you actually need 256MB to run it not 64MB:
The minimum memory requirement for Ubuntu 9.10 is 256 MB of memory.
Perhaps it’s time for the Ubuntu developers to update their site to incorporate more accurate system requirements? I don’t know what it is with Linux developers and poor documentation about basic information such as What’s New and Hardware Requirements. Ugh.
Installation
Ultimate Edition 2.5 is a Live CD distro (not surprising since it’s based on Ubuntu 9.10. After you boot into the Live CD desktop you’ll notice a “Install Ubuntu 9.10” icon on the desktop. Click that to get started.
The installer has been customized to reflect the overall color scheme of the Ultimate Edition 2.5 desktop (more on that in the desktop section). But color aside, it’s essentially the same as installing any other version of Ubuntu. The install isn’t difficult at all.
As the install proceeds, you will see blurbs pop up about various applications included with Ultimate Edition 2.5. The installation took about 35 minutes. The longest part seemed to be the copying of files. Again, not surprising given the large amount of software that is bundled into Ultimate Edition 2.5.
Installation Steps
Step 1: Welcome
Step 2: Setting Up the Clock & Location
Step 3: Keyboard Layout
Step 4: Prepare Disk Space
Step 5: Who Are You?
Step 6: Ready To Install
Step 7: Installation
Step 8. Confirmation & Finish

Partitioning a hard disk during the install.
Related Posts:
- Ultimate Edition 2.8
- Kubuntu Netbook Edition 10.04 Review
- Ubuntu Linux Netbook Edition 10.04 (Lucid Lynx)
- Linux Mint Debian Edition
- Kubuntu Netbook Edition 10.04








Another week, another ubuntu review.
My first linux is with ultimate 1.7. Ultimate teach me what is basero, kde, gnome, k3b many linux app with strange name. So no need download and try one-by-one.
Mr TheeMan have a lot time to make ultimate distro. I wish he will make ultimate 3 base on Debian itself.
The reviewer apparently hasn’t read up what Gnome-Do can do. It is IMHO one of the most useful utilities ever made. And if you don’t want it, you can set it not to start on boot-up. If you don’t know how, then you have no business doing a review.
Prokokok, I’ll try to give Gnome-Do a second chance. I think it just irritated me more than anything else. However, I appreciate the feedback and I’ll give it another look.
Gnome-Do is gods gift. Absolute Perfection.
“Perhaps it’s time for the Ubuntu developers to update their site to incorporate more accurate system requirements? I don’t know what it is with Linux developers and poor documentation about basic information such as What’s New and Hardware Requirements. Ugh.”
Sorry, but we are programmers. Documentation is a different department.
In all seriousness, Ultimate system requirements are bit steeper than standard Ubuntu. At least if you turn all the included eye candy on which is one of the main points of this distro. I noted this when trying to run it on my Sempron desktop with integrated Nvidia video. Plain Ubuntu ran fine, but Ultimate slowed to a crawl. Still, if you have the hardware, it is way slicker than straight Ubuntu for those into such things.
The large selection of software is a good deal for those wanting to experiment, yet do not want to download everything separately.
really really thanks for reviewing ultimate 2.5. really really thanks for listing the moajor apps. i wish you had reviewed it a bit early.
i would have appreciated a bit more detail review though.
but keep up the good work.
Thanks for the review. I think this one is about what one would expect; a lot of software, pretty good collection of stuff that works, but little attention to value added documentation above and beyond the bzse system, relying instead on Ubuntu documentstion, not all of it relevant to this particular system.
To compare, Linux Mint is quite easy to install and use and a pretty full featured implementation of the GNOME desktop. Mint probably has more complete documentation of what it offers. Ultimate offers more desktop environments, but no additional documentation.
Worthwhile for a distro and desktop junkie; probably not much incremental value for anyone else and probably not a good idea for a first time user.
Nice review. What I’d like to see is a direct comparison with UE and other “DVD size” distros like Sabayon and Super OS. These tend to be way overkill for me, but I would be interested in seeing how they compare to one another.
UE is an awesome distro. I have an overbuilt win7 machine and the bigger the better. Someday I’ll be in that mode where Im trying to make the distro as small as possible, but that day is not today. Viva la 3GB+ distro!
I did not test this software, and chances are I will not test this software. I base my comments based on the years of software testing that I have done and the thousands of times that I have installed at least a couple of hundred distinct Linux distributions.
This is a mega distribution. Benefits: access to a lot of alternatives. Useful when you are trying to decide what you want to use and also useful when you want to evaluate and test a lot of desktops and a lot of applications.
The cost of such a mega distribution is level of complexity: arguably too much stuff. This makes it a confusing choice for beginners – too many choices to understand, and it also makes the software heavy and cumbersome, leading to slower than average installation and the likelihood of many unnecessary services being automatically turned on, so unless you manage it carefully and pare it down, it will be slow.
Nothing wrong with it; probably a GREAT distro for evaluations. I’ve done plenty of evaluations, so this time I will pass.