So how "light" is a default install of Fedora these days? The thing I don't like about Ubuntu is that they take the kitchen sink approach and install a bunch of stuff I don't believe should be installed by default, such as Open/Libre Office.
Both Ubuntu and Fedora install from a CD-sized ISO file which doubles as a live booting environment. In the modern world, that's less than 1% of the storage of even a "small" laptop. And it's only slightly larger than iOS5 or Android installation bundles.
How much "lighter" do you really want it to be?
If you really have storage requirements that won't fit a desktop distribution, try something like buildroot (http://buildroot.uclibc.org/) or Yocto (http://www.yoctoproject.org/), which are better targetted at that kind of environment.
That said this is also part of what makes Linux shine compared to especially Windows: Usually everything is installed and Just Works in 20 minutes after started installation. (Have been fixing peoples borked Windowses from '95 to '08 so I'm allowed to be opinionated here. : )
FWIW I always thought Fedora was aimed at more tech-savvy users, not "ordinary" users (whatever that may mean).
A linux distro should assume that if the user is installing the OS himself, he isn't ordinary and should quite simply ASK what the user wants to install, instead of assuming. This sort of stupidity forces me to look for the most minimal install ISO for every distro I deal with.
No, that's a "strawman user", or some grandma.
There are tons of ordinary users that can install Windows. And almost all Mac users can install OS X (there's not much to it).
They are no programmers, they are no superusers, they are no admins. They just know how to insert a DVD, answer a few questions and press next.
There's no reason to not be able to do the same with Linux, or for a linux distro to assume "that if the user is installing the OS himself, he isn't ordinary".
Doubly so for Ubuntu, who wants to be the people's friendly distro and change all that "Linux is for geeks" mentality.
I'm willing to bet you never worked in technical support. The average person is lucky if they manage to turn on a computer.
That doesn't mean that users that can install Windows and OS X are in the minority. It's just selection bias.
I think most users are quite capable of installing an OS. Most users never call tech support. Otherwise MS woudl be broke.
> The thing I don't like about Ubuntu is that they take the kitchen sink approach [. . .]
On the bright side, the installer (again, for 15) offers a "Minimal" option in the same dialog box, which skips Gnome/XWindows/OpenOffice/etc. With Ubuntu I recall having to search for a special minimal installer ISO.
"Interactive installs" are not great for users. You end up with dependency hell; or users aren't clueful about the difference between a KDE and Gnome environment. Sane defaults, and allowing people to uninstal stuff, are better for most users.
There are other distributions which claim to be small, and which are cut down versions of Ubuntu (usually) but which are actually quite large. See, for example eeebuntu (now called auroraos) which installed a bunch of OpenOffice language stuff, but not OO itself.
At any rate, I strongly recommend doing a netinstall. Then you don't even waste bandwidth on stuff you don't want.