If you want to test drive your own private cloud, try Ubuntu Cloud Live. It’s a 600 MB image, just download, burn to USB drive, boot your system with it and you have a cloud setup.
Download the image from here:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-cloud-live/releases/11.10/ubuntu-11.10-cloud-live-amd64.img
Note: This is a 64-bit mage.
Recommended to have atleast a 4GB pen drive.
Use the ‘dd’ command to copy the image over to your USB drive. For example, if your USB drive is connected to /dev/sdb,  then run `dd if=ubuntu-11.10-cloud-live-amd64.img of=/dev/sdb`. WARNING: THIS COMMAND WILL ERASE ALL DATA PREVIOUSLY STORED ON THE TARGET DEVICE. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THE CORRECT DEVICE WHEN FLASHING.
Have fun 🙂
Pingback: Ubuntu Cloud Live Offers Private Clouds via USB Drive | Matias Vangsnes
Pingback: Ubuntu Cloud Live Offers Private Clouds via USB Drive | Install Ubuntu