Desktop CD
The desktop CD allows you to try Ubuntu without changing
your computer at all, and at your option to install it permanently
later. This type of CD is what most people will want to use. You will
need at least 256MB of RAM to install from this CD.
There are two images available, each for a different type of computer:
PC (Intel x86) desktop CD
For almost all PCs. This includes most machines with
Intel/AMD/etc type processors and almost all computers that run
Microsoft Windows, as well as newer Apple Macintosh systems based on
Intel processors. Choose this if you are at all unsure.
64-bit PC (AMD64) desktop CD
Choose this to take full advantage of computers based on the
AMD64 or EM64T architecture (e.g., Athlon64, Opteron, EM64T Xeon). If
you have a non-64-bit processor made by AMD, or if you need full support
for 32-bit code, use the Intel x86 images instead.
Server install CD
The server install CD allows you to install Ubuntu
permanently on a computer for use as a server. It will not install a
graphical user interface.
There are three images available, each for a different type of computer:
PC (Intel x86) server install CD
For almost all PCs. This includes most machines with
Intel/AMD/etc type processors and almost all computers that run
Microsoft Windows, as well as newer Apple Macintosh systems based on
Intel processors. Choose this if you are at all unsure.
64-bit PC (AMD64) server install CD
Choose this to take full advantage of computers based on the
AMD64 or EM64T architecture (e.g., Athlon64, Opteron, EM64T Xeon). If
you have a non-64-bit processor made by AMD, or if you need full support
for 32-bit code, use the Intel x86 images instead.
SPARC server install CD
For Sun UltraSPARC computers, including those based on the multicore UltraSPARC T1 ("Niagara") processors.
Alternate install CD
The alternate install CD allows you to perform certain
specialist installations of Ubuntu. It provides for the following
situations:
* creating pre-configured OEM systems;
* setting up automated deployments;
* upgrading from older installations without network access;
* LVM and/or RAID partitioning;
* installs on systems with less than about 256MB of RAM
(although note that low-memory systems may not be able to run a full
desktop environment reasonably).
In the event that you encounter a bug using the alternate
installer, please file a bug on the debian-installer package.
There are two images available, each for a different type of computer:
PC (Intel x86) alternate install CD
For almost all PCs. This includes most machines with
Intel/AMD/etc type processors and almost all computers that run
Microsoft Windows, as well as newer Apple Macintosh systems based on
Intel processors. Choose this if you are at all unsure.
64-bit PC (AMD64) alternate install CD
Choose this to take full advantage of computers based on the
AMD64 or EM64T architecture (e.g., Athlon64, Opteron, EM64T Xeon). If
you have a non-64-bit processor made by AMD, or if you need full support
for 32-bit code, use the Intel x86 images instead.