There are many different flavours of Ubuntu. You can download Ubuntu or one of the other flavours, listed here. Depending on your laptop's hardware, you may want to Download Lubuntu or Xubuntu instead of Ubuntu, as they are 'light' and use fewer resources.

You can use USB, but your laptop has to support this.

1. Download Rufus



2. Download Ubuntu

   
   
   

   You will probably need the 32-bit version, but your laptop may also be able to run 64-bit, please post more info about your laptop so we can check it for you.



3. Open Rufus



4. Use the following settings:

   
   
   
   
   
   • Device
     
     
     
     • your USB drive
     
     
   
   
   • Partition scheme and target system type
     
     
     
     • MBR partition scheme for BIOS and UEFI computers
     
     
   
   
   • File system
     
     
     
     • FAT32 (Default)
     
     
   
   
   • Cluster size
     
     
     
     • 16 kilobytes (Default)
     
     
   
   
   • New volume label
     
     
     
     • Ubuntu
     
     
   
   
   • Uncheck Check device for bad blocks
   
   
   • Check Quick format
   
   
   • Check Create a bootable disk using
     
     
     
     • Select ISO Image
       
       
       
       • Click on the CD drive icon and select the Ubuntu ISO you've downloaded
       
       
     
     
   
   
   • Check Create extended label and icon files
   
   


5. Click Start

Note: this will destroy all your data on your USB drive.

If USB booting doesn't work for you, you can also try Wubi.

1. Download 7-Zip


2. Download Ubuntu



3. Open Ubuntu's ISO file using 7-Zip and extract all files to a new directory

   
   
   

   For example DesktopUbuntu.



4. After the extraction is complete, open the directory you just created


5. Double click on wubi.exe and follow the instructions