A great copy and paste guide to creating a virtual private server using SWSoft's open source OpenVZ software, and using Debian as a base as opposed to RedHat. The guide applies to Ubuntu as well, though not specified.
http://www.howtoforge.com/openvz_debian_vps
From the article:
"In this HowTo I will describe the steps to be taken to prepare a server for OpenVZ virtual machines on Debian 3.1 (Sarge) 32Bit Linux. With OpenVZ you can create multiple Virtual Private Servers (VPS) on the same hardware, similar to Xen and the Linux Vserver project. OpenVZ is the open-source branch of Virtuozzo, a commercial virtualization solution used by many providers that offer virtual servers. The OpenVZ kernal patch is licensed under the GPL license, and the user-level tools are under the QPL license."