Working on a scripting interface to Linux designed so you can configure everything internally to your application (ie it can run as the init process) with no significant dependencies (you can statically link it)[1]. Its not finished yet, but you can configure network interfaces, routing etc. Needs some more examples, build scripts etc...

[1] https://github.com/justincormack/ljsyscall

Have you tried https://help.ubuntu.com/12.04/serverguide/jeos-and-vmbuilder... ?

The minimum install has ~4 processes running. You can only get so much more bare then that.