🧱 uMini: A Minimal Ubuntu-based Live ISO Builder

uMini is a minimalist live ISO image built from the ground up using official Ubuntu repositories (currently based on Ubuntu 24.04 “Noble Numbat”).
This project provides a script that assembles a bootable ISO image suitable for legacy BIOS and UEFI systems, with a text-based autologin session and basic network tools preinstalled.

⚠️ Disclaimer
This project is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or supported by Canonical Ltd., the developers of Ubuntu.
Ubuntu is a registered trademark of Canonical Ltd. All references to Ubuntu or related trademarks are for descriptive purposes only.
The resulting ISO image is a custom community-driven build and must not be misrepresented as an official Ubuntu distribution.

✅ Features

  • Based on the official Ubuntu 24.04 Noble repository (minimal base system via debootstrap)
  • Live boot support for both BIOS and UEFI
  • Preinstalled packages for networking (systemd-networkd + iwd)
  • Auto-login to a text terminal as umini user
  • Timezone auto-detection and setup
  • Two users:
    • umini:umini (autologin, sudo enabled)
    • ubuntu:ubuntu (standard user, sudo enabled)
    • root:toor
  • Includes standard tools: nano, wget, curl, apt, dpkg, grub, etc.
  • Supports automatic security updates (unattended-upgrades)
  • Clean build process with automatic cleanup on failure

🛠 Requirements

To run the script, you’ll need the following packages installed on your build system (Debian/Ubuntu-based):

sudo apt install debootstrap xorriso syslinux-utils squashfs-tools grub-pc-bin grub-efi-amd64-bin mtools

📦 Download Prebuilt ISO

A prebuilt ISO is available under the Releases section.
You can test the live image on real hardware or in a virtual machine (e.g., VirtualBox or QEMU).

🚀 How to Build

  1. Clone the repository: 
    git clone https://github.com/linuxmative/uMini.git
cd uMini
  2. Run the build script:
./build.sh
  1. After successful completion, the ISO will be saved as:
uMini-noble-YYYYMMDD.iso

⚠️ Important:

  • Do not run the script directly as root. The script uses sudo only where required.

  • Make sure your system has enough disk space and stable internet during the build.

☕ Support the Project

If you find uMini helpful, please consider donating via PayPal to help keep the project alive.

Your support encourages further development, better documentation, and more features.
Even a small donation goes a long way in supporting open-source software made for the community.

📜 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.
All trademarks and copyrights remain the property of their respective owners.

🤝 Contributing

Feel free to open issues or submit pull requests with improvements, ideas, or bug fixes!

📬 Author

Maksym Titenko @titenko
GitHub: @linuxmative
Website: linuxmative.github.io