I downloaded the 11.04 desktop i386 iso, put it on a usb drive so i could it install it on my netbook, but couldnt even get past the install screen, because it says i need 4.4GB to install ubuntu 11.04. The problem is that my hard drive is only 4GB large, a common size in netbooks. I have run installers for ubuntu 10.10, 10.04, 9.10 and 9.04 netbook editions on my netbook and never had a problem before. I notice that 11.04 has netbook and desktop editions combined into a single ISO, so maybe that is why the error happened in 11.04 and not before.
Also, I notice that the install footprint of 10.10 is around 2.1GB, so it shouldnt be a problem running 11.04 unless they truly added 2GB of junk to the OS. The problem is I just can't get past the installer.
ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: ubuntu-netbook (not installed)
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-8.42-generic 2.6.38.2
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-8-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Thu Apr 28 05:43:29 2011
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release i386 (20110427.1)
ProcEnviron:
LANGUAGE=en_US:en
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: netbook-meta
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
If 10.10's installation medium was only 2.1GB, for both the desktop and netbook edition, then 4.4GB isn't that much difference once you combine them. It would only be ~0.2GB difference to combine 10.10 in the same way.
As far as your problem, I have no clue as to why it would be wanting to install all 4.4GB of media if there are 2 separate versions on the disk.