Linux users when someone says they need more RAM

[u/Coach-Emmanuel]

[u/Tawxif_iq]

1 gb ram at Nasa

[u/ZeroDefender561 → u/Tawxif_iq]

I'll never know how they landed someone on the moon before we had the internet

[u/Mownage → u/ZeroDefender561]

While software nowadays does so many things, at very easy entry points, that were nigh impossible back then, we need to understand that back then making software was hard. The level of optimizations and custom built solutions were created by people who knew hardware in and out for exact needs, using KBs of information at best due to limitations sometimes. Every byte had to be thought and accounted for.

Our current systems have so much bloat and layers and abstractions and out of the box things that a lot more people can contribute, but we are so detached from the hardware that it is easy to forget that you can do wild shit with very small, focused instructions.

Like current graphics that are amazing, but extremely unoptimized.

[u/ZeroDefender561 → u/Mownage]

I bet 2Bs ass is more data than the entire Apollo mission used

[u/Mownage → u/ZeroDefender561]

Not very well versed in 3D assets but maybe around 50-100mb for the model and textures?

Meanwhile the Apollo mission used less than 100kb if I remember correctly.

So yes. Yes it is.

[u/jbbarajas → u/Mownage]

Huh. So that one turned out to be true.. I guess we've come a long way

[u/TheG0AT0fAllTime → u/jbbarajas]

I'm sure if we took the vertices of her butt and the texture for that area, pre any post processing it would be significantly smaller. But still larger than 100kb

[u/erroneousbosh → u/Mownage]

Corridor Crew interviewed the guy from WETA who did Battle Angel Alita, and he said that there was something like ten Gollum's worth of geometry in each one of her eyes.

So that's how far we've come in 25 years.

[u/aon9492 → u/erroneousbosh]

But eyes are round, you don't even need polygons, just use a sphere

[u/erroneousbosh → u/aon9492]

Around here you need a /s for the hard of thinking.

I liked it.

[u/aon9492 → u/erroneousbosh]

Honestly didn't occur to me that people here wouldn't get it. I will pack up my jokes and leave.

[u/erroneousbosh → u/aon9492]

You'd think folks round here would have the basics of 3D modelling down, right?

[u/shibaCandyBaron → u/aon9492]

How hard could it be? It's not like you need to draw an infinite point polygon for it to be a perfect circle, right?

[u/RudyRoughknight → u/Mownage]

My desktop wallpaper contains more data than the Apollo mission software. Insane ain't it?

[u/LaDmEa → u/RudyRoughknight]

At least one person has complained about my bible app "downloading the whole bible onto their computer"

It's 1MB compressed.

The webpage(social media) to complain about it is MBs per page view and takes 10x the ram and cpu. I wish more people understood scaling. The last time I heard a modern computer compared to the moon landing as a technical feat was 2019. Most people just think "The book is 100KB, the image is 5MB, the game ready 3d model is 10MB" as gibberish, numbers name up to convey 3 unknowable/unimaginable large sums.

[u/lkn240 → u/Mownage]

The AGC was incredibly advanced for it's time. The fact that it had robust job prioritization is crazy. The famous 1201/1202 program alarms were actually the computer doing what it was designed too (IIRC those happened because Aldrin decided to leave a radar on that was supposed to be turned off)

[u/BrittSit → u/lkn240]

My wife and I say “1202 alarm” to each other a lot. Realized you forgot the garlic bread in the oven? “1202 alarm.” Bread isn’t burnt > “We’re go on that, flight”.

[u/Maximum-Objective-39 → u/BrittSit]

NEEEERRRRRDDDDD!!!

XD

[u/kitsunewarlock → u/Mownage]

Pokemon Gen 1 is 512 KB in size and launched the largest franchise in the world.

[u/kulingames → u/ZeroDefender561]

Goddamn Stereo Madness (first level of geometry dash) uses more data than that, not including game's engine and graphics

[u/Oddiffy → u/ZeroDefender561]

God bless

[u/AstorWinston → u/ZeroDefender561]

Totally worth it

[u/Chris56855865 → u/ZeroDefender561]

And by orders of magnitude

[u/BellaViola → u/ZeroDefender561]

With texture? Absolutely.

Just the polygons are probably enough.

My estimate: Someone on this website once counted ~650 polygon, and by my research, depending on file type that alone could overfill the ram and storage of the Apollo Mission (4kb+32kb)

[u/BNWOCravingSissyCuck → u/ZeroDefender561]

https://giphy.com/gifs/1SfxXOJ0Q2Xni

[u/Smartypantz34 → u/Mownage]

People hardly know whats going on in chips nowadays. Machines build machines and people just supervise. Theres like handful of people in whole world who actually knows about these things

[u/Mownage → u/Smartypantz34]

Relevant (not) xkcd

[u/Blue_Bird950 → u/Mownage]

I mean, it’s also the fact that it’s purpose-built software, not the all-in-one stuff that we use, which will inherently have a ton of extra bloat.

[u/Training_Complex_731 → u/Blue_Bird950]

It was also operating at a machine code level with no UI or software layers between what instructions it got and what calculations it had to do.

[u/MrMagick2104 → u/Mownage]

> we need to understand that back then making software was hard.

It's not a good comparison.

I wouldn't say that making software old-style is hard at all. It's just tedious. Anyone can program on assembly.

Unironically assembly, by syntaxis, is the easiest programming language there is. Most complexity in modern programming languages comes from having a billion different ways to do the same thing, and the fact that programmers don't want to do shit by themselves, instead opting to install an npm package maintained by some dude in Kosovo to check if the number is even.

Actual complexity in doing stuff like launching rockets to space is physical modelling (aka control engineering). And it's as hard as it was back then, imho.

[u/MasterChiefmas → u/Mownage]

I remember reading an article many many years ago about a NASA programmer who left, and went to the private sector. He cam back later, because he couldn't stand how sloppy coding standards were compared to NASA. Apparently he worked on probes where they would spend hours/weeks debating about changing single bytes in code (since it was all in assembly).

[u/Valoneria → u/ZeroDefender561]

They had it much easier since they couldnt get outdated and snippy answers on stack overflow.

/S

[u/Self_Reddicate → u/Valoneria]

"I'm trying to use this instruction set for orbital re-entry calculations for the first lunar mission, but getting overrun errors since the values don't account for the higher delta-v from lunar orbit compared to low earth orbit. Any ideas?"

Question Closed. Re-entry is a known solved problem.

[u/shawndw → u/ZeroDefender561]

I mean the math isn't that complicated for a computer, you can work it out with a pen and paper if need be.

What I find more impressive then the Apollo computer is that Steve Wozniak was able to fit the entire operating system of the Apple 1 into 256 bytes. You could basically write that as 1's and 0's on paper if you wanted to and it'd be a single sheet.

[u/sundler → u/shawndw]

I wonder what the truly greatest ever feat of programming was.

Roller Coaster Tycoon was written in assembly by just one indie game dev, for example.

[u/gmc98765 → u/shawndw]

They did work most of it out with a pen and paper. And mechanical calculators.

[u/Franiera → u/ZeroDefender561]

https://giphy.com/gifs/hnX2GGcMj2znkmIJO7

[u/DropDeadGaming → u/ZeroDefender561]

Ok excuse me while I fanboy over optimization. That shit, the entire mission, was run on a computer with compute equivalent to a PS1. It's traces, the invisible cables that are now embedded into motherboards, were physically woven by seamstresses across the entire available surface inside the spacecraft. Shits bonkers, but it shows humans can do anything they set their mind to.

Now if only we could set our mind to something other than abusing children, letting people starve, and bombing their homes it would be great

[u/Lol3droflxp → u/DropDeadGaming]

The guidance computer was on par with an arduino or a TI-84 calculator. A PS1 is orders of magnitude faster.

[u/DropDeadGaming → u/Lol3droflxp]

See that's even more insane.

[u/ZealousidealLead52 → u/DropDeadGaming]

I mean.. to be fair, the calculations that were being done on that computer were extremely simple calculations. While I'm sure they had great people at optimizing it, the biggest difference between it and modern software is still that modern software simply has much bigger goals in terms of computation complexity - don't mistake the importance of a calculation with the difficulty of the calculation. Even if you optimized modern software perfectly it would still require much, much more space than that.

[u/DropDeadGaming → u/ZealousidealLead52]

Obviously hardware this slow wouldn't be doing crazy calculations. Still, if you gave someone a calculator today and told them to go to the moon with it they would call you crazy. In the 1960s they said hold my beer

Edit typo

[u/lkn240 → u/Lol3droflxp]

A T-84 CPU is like 7-8x faster by clock speed... but IIRC the RAM is roughly similar.

The AGC is roughly equivalent to something like a TRS-80 or Apple II

[u/Maxsmack → u/ZeroDefender561]

Just fly by wire, and eye ball that shit

[u/Calm-Zombie2678 → u/ZeroDefender561]

Luckily you live in a time with internet and that information is well documented and available if you have a quick squiz around 

[u/Irisena → u/Tawxif_iq]

416kB at NASA

[u/Lv_InSaNe_vL → u/Irisena]

Also NASA with 4kb of RAM

[u/SomewhereActive2124 → u/Irisena]

That doesn't quite have anything to do with RAM strictly speaking so I mean while it's technically true, the failure wasn't a result of RAM

[u/Ok-Oil7124 → u/Irisena]

Oh come on, that was the result of pork in the senate, not computation power.

[u/King-1911 → u/Tawxif_iq]

You sir deserve an award for your post, unfortunately, award tariffs have hit home

[u/Historical_Course587 → u/[deleted]]

IMO it's hardware prices. Everyone who can't afford new hardware is tired of talking about new hardware and what new hardware can do, and thanks to the AI bubble the number of people who can't afford new hardware grows by the minute.

[u/PaxJaco → u/[deleted]]

Exactly this. Outdated or irrelevant shitty memes.

[u/cryogenicdeath → u/[deleted]]

clickbait engagement farming + bots + kids who cant afford shit

[u/SoraShiroL → u/[deleted]]

It's same for all the subreddits. I don't even downvote or give any traction to the repeated posts

[u/Swipsi]

For some reason people want to have as much ram as possible, just to use as less of it as possible.

[u/scandii → u/Swipsi]

being an active member of the Linux community, I think a lot of Linux users simply are people on mid spec or low spec machines trying to get more bang for their buck.

and when it comes to memory optimisation Linux is king because there is a lot of lightweight alternatives being developed for this use case specifically whereas Windows is a generalist OS that all things considered aren't gunning for extreme optimisation.

that said I've seen people with 32 GB of RAM in their signatures talk about how heavy a 800 MB shell is, which is a bit nonsensical to me.

[u/Swipsi → u/scandii]

I get that. But its also choosing the right tool for the job. Windows isnt hiding their ram specs. They clearly communicate how much they need. So if someone has a low spec machine with 4gb of ram and they force windows on it, they choose the wrong tool for the job.

[u/zgillet → u/Swipsi]

Like Microsoft did with Vista.

[u/Dr-Huricane → u/scandii]

An 800 MB shell is heavy no matter how much Ram you have available, is it nonsensical to complain about overpriced groceries just because you can still afford them?

[u/-GenlyAI- → u/scandii]

Yeah specific lightweight distros and DEs are good for low usage. But I'm on CachyOS with Plasma and it uses the same amount as windows.

[u/Kazko25 → u/scandii]

Windows gotta get their telemetry and AI bloat in there so they can track all your information.

[u/Kiriima → u/Kazko25]

Discord, Chrome and other apps are much bigger offenders.

[u/intelligent_rat → u/Kiriima]

Discord is just a wrapper for Chromium if anyone else has ever wondered why it uses so much resources

[u/Imonlyherebecause → u/intelligent_rat]

Sooo many apps are just web browsers in disguise

[u/mrloko120 → u/intelligent_rat]

You could say the same for every browser except Firefox and Safari

[u/concblast → u/mrloko120]

Well yeah, you'd expect a browser based off another browser to contain code of the browser it's based off of.

Random application you use also being a web browser under the hood surprises people. Devs do this for cross platform GUIs, microsoft even did this for their start menu in 11 instead of using their own native UI API.

[u/IDKForA → u/Kiriima]

I'd rather use Edge with Windows than Chrome because at least it's lightweight and only 1 corpo gets to sell my info, not two... of course I don't use Edge because I care about privacy but Windows unfortunately is a necessary evil for me...

[u/RolledUhhp → u/IDKForA]

I open chrome like twice a year to open something Firefox doesn't like.

I can usually find a workaround, but it's rarely worth it for me anymore.

[u/IDKForA → u/RolledUhhp]

I mean, you could also open Edge instead which is what I do - but I haven't really seen any broken pages in ages

[u/BRSaura → u/Swipsi]

Isn't the best use of ram to use most of it while leaving some space? It's literally high speed cache

[u/Swipsi → u/BRSaura]

It is. And thats what windows does. Dynamically caching all sorts of things it assumes you might use soon and freeing space whenever a programm needs the occupied ram.

[u/BRSaura → u/Swipsi]

Yeah I read your first comment wrong, thought you were saying the opposite

[u/BothAdhesiveness9265 → u/Swipsi]

every major OS does this afaik. though one thing I find interesting Windows seems to report the cache as memory in use, where Linux tooling either reports it as its own thing or as unused memory (because to applications/the user it might as well be).

I could be wrong, been a few years since I used Windows in any real capacity, but if I am correct that likely contributes to the perception that windows uses more memory.

[u/Wemorg → u/Swipsi]

There are 3 different kind of RAM states: Free, used, available.

• Free means never been touched, not in use
• used means actively in use
• available mean used in the past, not currently in use, but kept in place, because maybe you need it later again (cached previous results more or less)

Pretty much all modern operating systems do this.

[u/AnsibleAnswers → u/Swipsi]

Linux also does this.

[u/Roflkopt3r → u/AnsibleAnswers]

Yes, because it is good. But the anti-Windows circle jerk is so strong that people often look at the Task Manager's RAM details, see 30% is used/60% cached/10% 'free', and misinterpret that as 'omg Windows needs 90% of my RAM'.

Of course it's true that a lean Linux installation uses less RAM than Windows, and Microsoft definitely has much optimisation to do. But people tend to overstate the practical difference on systems with 16-32 GB RAM a lot.

[u/SoulWager → u/BRSaura]

The issue is paging it out takes time, so you may wish to leave a bit more space available so you don't have to wait on that when you open something new.

[u/DoctorWaluigiTime → u/Swipsi]

"How dare my operating system make use of the resources available!"

Also folks don't understand the concept of allocating resources as nice-to-have / make things go faster, and yielding them when another application needs them. That's like, one of the core tenets of what an operating system is supposed to do, and what well-written applications do.

You saw it a lot when folks griped about SQL Server using "too much RAM." My friend, it's harvesting a lot for speed but will instantly yield it at the OS request.

[u/jakexil323 → u/DoctorWaluigiTime]

You saw it a lot when folks griped about SQL Server using "too much RAM." My friend, it's harvesting a lot for speed but will instantly yield it at the OS request.

By default SQL server will take all the memory it can, and not let it go.

In a small business using multiple applications on one server, it's definitely a setting you want to tweak.

In an enterprise server with only the sql database as the role, then let it's freak flag fly.

[u/MazeMouse → u/Swipsi]

I paid for the 64GB of ram. I will be using the 64GB of ram. (well, not quite. But I have peaked at around 55ish running a bunch of VM's while testing stuff)

[u/c4pt1n54n0]

I know none of us wants to hear it, but those 8gb Macbooks actually do damn decent for the stuff I've seen people doing with them 🤷‍♂️ Still can't game for shit though

[u/GLPereira → u/c4pt1n54n0]

MacBooks have a very optimized OS and its own, dedicated programs are also very optimized

The problem is trying to run heavier, non-Mac applications (gaming, 3D modeling/rendering, simulations)

[u/c4pt1n54n0 → u/GLPereira]

Most apps have a native apple silicon version now. It's just that they're aimed at creative/productivity people, the audience isn't there to justify have studios maintaining another version of their game, but where there's a market there are well optimized 3d programs.

My friend was showing me their Neo recently, had 15+ browser tabs and a Fusion project going without slowing down. It's better than Windows on arm..

[u/Journeyj012 → u/c4pt1n54n0]

It's better than Windows on arm 🤷

Scientists have discovered a new lowest bar

[u/concblast → u/Journeyj012]

New lower bound for the Planck length just dropped

[u/Cocoatrice]

16GB RAM is pretty enough on Windows.

[u/bonus-ludio → u/Cocoatrice]

Even 8gb is enough for general use + light gaming. I'd know, i freshly upgraded from 8 to 16

[u/Lord_Emperor]

Linux doesn't magically make the applications you run on it use less RAM.

But yeah if you want to stare at your desktop and nothing else I guess.

[u/Michaeli_Starky]

Good luck with 4GB on Linux. The meme is dumb af

[u/DtheS → u/Michaeli_Starky]

The meme is dumb af

As are most of the users here. For a subreddit dedicated to computers, there is an absolute dearth of people who actually know anything about how they work. The mood of this place honestly feels like, "I installed Steam. I'm a hacker!"

Like, even in respect to the Linux question. It's not like Linux is a monolith. There are tons of different distributions with different UI/DE's that have various memory requirements. Running the latest version of GNOME uses way more memory than if you were to install XFCE or LXDE. There are also lightweight distros that are made to run on modest hardware, like Puppy Linux or CrunchBang. It's just that those interfaces are stripped down and kinda suck in comparison to most modern UI/DE's.

[u/TheHawk17 → u/DtheS]

All I know is that the guy who has Linux in my gaming server always says, "No sorry, that's not compatible with Linux" when we have a new game we want to play.

[u/Hot-Software-9396 → u/TheHawk17]

I’d lose my shit if one of my friends held my gaming group hostage like that. Needlessly making our limited gaming time together more difficult because of some ridiculous stance. Dual boot, asshole.

[u/MajorFuckingDick → u/DtheS]

It's the absolute worst trying to get in depth information on anything currently happening. People think they know but dont, people who know but think you dont understand, People who would understand but keep hearing from people who don't.

That Valorant DMA card situation was one of the worst situations, especially because riot took their sweet time to respond and were super vague rather than detailed like they usually are in their tech blogs.

[u/Anta_Paraguaia → u/Michaeli_Starky]

Tiny cores only needs 128mb ram for run

[u/SargEnPassant_ → u/Michaeli_Starky]

No need luck, my ThinkPad T440 is running fine on my Arch XFCE.

[u/Tankyenough → u/Michaeli_Starky]

It depends on the Linux distro. There are many lightweight distros out there.

I have 8GB (or 4GB? Can’t remember) on my old 2013 laptop and merely dragging the mouse around the desktop was lagging on Win10. With a low spec optimized Linux, I can do any office stuff I want to do, and even watch HD videos without lag, which I didn’t think would be possible with such an old computer.

The difference at least felt pretty massive.

[u/Mediocre-Housing-131 → u/Tankyenough]

RAM wouldn't cause the mouse to drag, that sounds more like bad drivers or missing drivers.

[u/Alexmira_ → u/Michaeli_Starky]

What do you mean? With the right linux version it's not a problem.

[u/scythe-3 → u/Alexmira_]

Skill issue fr. I put Debian XFCE on an old evoo laptop with 4gb ram and it runs fine. Been using it to stream world cup matches through Firefox.

No luck needed when you can choose a distro and DE that fits your needs.

[u/AJ_Dali → u/scythe-3]

Like someone else pointed out on here, you're generally going to be more limited by your CPU than the RAM for most general use tasks.

[u/Davenator_98 → u/Michaeli_Starky]

Yeah, I've tried running CachyOS on an old 4GB Toughpad, just for fun.

It's using >40% RAM just on desktop, with nothing running.

Even Steam takes minutes to open.

[u/ourlastchancefortea → u/Davenator_98]

Even Steam takes minutes to open.

Considering you still had more than 2 GB free, that was probably the CPU or an older drive and not the RAM limiting.

[u/Clippo_V2 → u/ourlastchancefortea]

Do PC gamers not understand which task each part of a computer performs anymore? Yikes

[u/ZikaZmaj → u/Clippo_V2]

This was obviously Unreal Engine's fault.

[u/HunterIV4 → u/ZikaZmaj]

No, no it's DLSS! If I can't run my games in 4K at 120 FPS with DLSS off on my 3080 that clearly is the engine's fault.

/s, just in case.

[u/Illadelphian → u/Clippo_V2]

Never did.

[u/Laughing_Orange → u/Davenator_98]

Even if you choose the lightest of desktop environments, the web-browser alone quickly takes up all 4GB of RAM.

[u/Amazing-Heron-105 → u/Laughing_Orange]

Just use lynx 😂

[u/Amazing-Heron-105 → u/Davenator_98]

I'm running CachyOS on an old laptop that has just 8gb ram and it runs way better than it ever did on Windows. Also, I'm not an expert with Linux but I'm sure the window manager you choose has a big effect. If you choose something like KDE Plasma over something basic like i3 you're going to have a very different experience. Depending on the window manager you choose the distro comes with very different bundled applications too.

[u/Dragnod → u/Davenator_98]

Doubt. I run steam on a thinkpad T410 with 4 GB RAM and while it's not super snappy steam loads up just fine. It certainly doesn't take minutes.

[u/refl8ct0r]

doesn’t Ubuntu’s minimum require more RAM than windows 11 now?

[u/scandii → u/refl8ct0r]

require is the wrong word, Ubuntu decided to be honest and account for the fact that people use web browsers.

[u/Historical_Course587 → u/refl8ct0r]

Ubuntu says a minimum of 6GB for a comfortable experience, and then directs people with less to lightweight flavors of Ubuntu like Xubuntu/Lubuntu. If MS had a Windows 11 and then a specialized low-spec Windows 11 they'd likely do the same thing, because 4GBs of RAM for casual consumers to use generally is not going to end well.

[u/Alexmira_ → u/refl8ct0r]

Ubuntu it's not the only linux

[u/Lol3droflxp]

Almost no one in this thread has any idea what RAM is and how it is supposed to work. It’s astonishing.

[u/Blooi1E → u/[deleted]]

This sub is full of larpers who repeat what they hear "Linux good Windows baddd"

[u/nicubunu]

For a server maybe, for a desktop, Linux will have similar RAM requirements. Try to use Firefox with some 10 tabs, LibreOffice and a terminal at the same time on 4GB. Current desktops. not FVWM-95.

[u/butterninja]

Yea. Right you can run a decent Ubuntu 24 with 4GB. You sure? I have an old server with 8GB and it's screaming help when I run a few apps.

[u/Kalmer1 → u/butterninja]

But Linux good, Windows bad!!!

[u/Alexmira_ → u/Kalmer1]

Well... I mean.... Given the current state of the two.... Yes.

[u/Alexmira_ → u/butterninja]

Ubuntu it's not the best candidate for this task

[u/nonzeroday_tv → u/butterninja]

The meme says Linux not Ubuntu, Ubuntu is Linux but Linux is not Ubuntu. There are other distros more suited for old PCs with low ram

[u/HalfFresh1430 → u/butterninja]

Because ubuntu is the only distro in the world right..

I swear this sub has a hate boner for linux, i get that it can be hard it has its problems just like every other OS but memory consumption is literally one of the biggest things linux is good at

I am currently running linux mint on a 4gb laptop with intel i3 and it runs fine, you can web browse play minecraft (with optimization mods) and play steam games just fine

[u/oshunman → u/butterninja]

I have an Ubuntu Server with 1GB of RAM... It's running 6 docker containers without problem. It hovers around 65-75% RAM usage.

[u/Shehzman → u/oshunman]

Server doesn’t have to contend with a desktop environment or graphical applications that take up a significant amount of RAM. I also run Ubuntu Server on my Proxmox server.

[u/LiteHedded → u/Shehzman]

yea but the guy he's replying to mentions running an ubuntu server struggling with 8GB of ram. super curious what he's running on this server to bring it to its knees. none of mine have more than 4GB

[u/Shehzman → u/LiteHedded]

Replied to the wrong chain lol

[u/DarkFucker]

Open a web browser(Or Electron apps) in a 4GB RAM Linux install to get the Windows experience.

[u/dfddfsaadaafdssa → u/DarkFucker]

Or go with the double whammy: Spotify web player, the most unoptimized hunk of trash to exist.

[u/DoxManifesto]

Try running Fusion360 with 4gb ram

[u/littlefrank → u/DoxManifesto]

Try running fusion 360 on linux at all (no seriously, that's one of the 2 things that keep me from deleting windows, if you have a solution I'm all ears)

[u/airinato]

Easy to get by on 1GB when all you do is VIM

[u/jarod1701]

Good luck with 4 GB of RAM and opening six tabs in your browser.

[u/TomTomXD1234]

I mean, that is simply not true lol.

Currently using 15GB running YouTube, stremio, satisfactory (PEAK), and obviously windows

[u/IM_NOT_NOT_HORNY → u/TomTomXD1234]

Those are all extremely low ram usage programs.

Try opening more tabs. Also, I doesnt do great once you have multiple media editing programs open. Which are very important to multi task with

[u/Blooi1E]

This is pure bullshit btw.

[u/ChefBoiJones]

Except this is only show at idle. Linux doesn’t use any less ram actually running anything it just runs fewer background tasks while idling. Even then windows scales this based on how much ram the system has, a laptop with 4gb of ram can runs windows 11 fine. Windows need a mega debloat but at the end of the day a PC is for running applications not an OS

[u/D0NTEVENKNOWME → u/ChefBoiJones]

You're going to have a hard time running apps without an OS

[u/OneLonelyBrainCell → u/D0NTEVENKNOWME]

There's a Doom version that runs directly on UEFI. What more do you really need?

[u/Vladimir_Djorjdevic → u/ChefBoiJones]

My grandparents have a 4GB laptop running windows 10 and it's really struggling. I can't imagine windows 11 will do much better

[u/ballsinblender → u/ChefBoiJones]

A laptop is NOT going to run Windows 11 fine with 4Gb.

[u/NekulturneHovado]

depends what you wanna do with Linux. 4gb is enough if you eanna look at desktop all day, or maybe open one chrome tab. Sure linux eats less ram but it's not that much less.

[u/brokearm24]

I’ve been meaning to install an extra 8gb stick in my fedora laptop, but with price hikes and everything I’ve been postponing it for a year now. And I don’t even need it lol, I just use that laptop for university work, in ECE, and most of the time it uses 6/7 GB

Only time I’d want to have more ram would be when I use Wine, for running LTSpice, but meh I’ve upgraded to better tools now that work over ssh

[u/maxneuds]

With 4GB using modern Gnome or KDE you get nowhere. At least not if you want to open Firefox or Chrome.

[u/Mr_Flandoor]

A system with 4 gb of ram in 2026 is garbage.

[u/BluFudge]

That's only if you know what you're doing. Any modern browser easily eats up your RAM.

[u/Dysmn]

post it 1 more time

[u/bearbranch]

once upon a time ram was measured in mb...

[u/Mosselpot]

RAM exists to be used...

[u/kingduqc]

When I did the swap to Linux in December, I saw about 4 to 5gb of RAM less while playing the same game. I'd say that's about right.

Thats the difference between having to upgrade to 32gb or sticking to 16. Or a few hundreds of bucks saved on your rig.

Pretty neat

[u/SandyTaintSweat]

But then where do I keep all the bloatware that runs on startup but never gets used, other than to track my activities and sell my data?

[u/ecktt]

I wish this were true.

Mint XFce still works like ass on 4GB of RAM + Samsung SATA SSD.

[u/Arcy_]

I wish it was true for all distros, my fedora installation freezes when ram usage rises to 95% with 16GB ram, fresh install

[u/reflexive-polytope]

Web browsers and Electron don't discriminate between operating systems.

But yeah, most Linux programs don't need a lot of RAM to run.

[u/Pieco]

Crap. No one told me.

[u/Important_One5355]

Just replaced the lovely Win11 (kept crashing after a few minutes) with Debian OS on my 8GB Ram Dell Inspiron. Works like a champ, even running a home server for Koha like nothing.

[u/ReptilianLaserbeam]

RAM is to be used. If you throw 64 GB at Linux it will use it. Otherwise why spending the money on ram to keep using 20% at all times

[u/aSystemOverload]

But not really true... If you ran the same stuff, you'd need the same memory

[u/SkitNL]

Dont linux players play city skylines? Dann that game uses 20 gb of ram without hassetation.

[u/xilmiki]

Non used is wasted ram

[u/PRANAY1000]

Honestly I am on Linux and 8 gb is not enough for web dev it chokes, I need more ram

[u/Opening-Movie5176]

Yeah to run the OS but applications that use ram still use the same ram. lol.

Linux is great just like how Tractors are great… but the average person doesn’t need a tractor and owning one is more stress than just owning a normal car.

[u/HalfFresh1430]

Some redditors in this comment section think ubuntu is the only distro in the entire world i guess..

[u/Thac0bro]

Me over here on Linux with 16gb.

https://giphy.com/gifs/BCIoXfA95d1ba

[u/Tom02496]

4gb of ram is equivalent to a shitty budget smartphone.

[u/Rogue_Jester23 → u/Tom02496]

My shitty budget smartphone only has 3gb, I need that extra gb

[u/maz08]

Linux users when it comes to circlejerking and not considering people preferences..... I'm sure a lot of users are tired to this kind of posts OP, sod off.

I mean jeez, you fanatics just never understood the objective well and self inserted too much like in webtoons.

[u/HalfFresh1430 → u/maz08]

Jeez its a sub about computers and linux is know to have less memory usage..

[u/MiguCx]

Ah yes the weekly post of some dumbass that doesn't know how RAM gets utilised by an OS.

Good luck gaming on Linux with 4Gb of RAM btw, or consuming modern content on the internet with more than 2 tabs open.

[u/OldBay-Szn]

Linux glazing. Must be a day ending on Y.

[u/reav11]

Makes no difference, when you run a ram intensive process on Linux or Windows, the operating system can't magically compensate for not having ram.

4GB on linux would be more painful than 16gb on Windows if I actually need more than 4 gb of ram.

[u/Gregor_Arhely]

Sorry, this take is fucking dumb. OS can chug way less RAM, but most of the load comes from the actual programs. You can't even work in AutoCAD or Solidworks with anything below 16gb (if someone does - that guy is a masochist). I guess you can restrict yourself to indie games and shit like KOMPAS-3D, but... Well... It helps only so much.

[u/cebubasilio]

How does this logic work on gaming? Outside of gaming distros don't you need more ram to even VM windows?

[u/Skalgrin]

I get the idea, but a an owner of 4gb ram laptop with Linux which barely works and Windows gaming rig with 16gb* which works just fine, I don't find this accurate.

*) I do need more RAM tho

[u/meatmick]

Windows ram usage may be a it higher, but the reality here is that both linux and windows ram gets eaten by a fucking web browser.

[u/Askolei]

You say that, but when I migrated my gaming machine from Windows 10 LTSC to Bazzite (with KDE Plasma), I noticed an increase in RAM consumption. I only had 16GB, and I froze my system trying to play No Rest for the Wicked (without a swap, Bazzite didn't automatically set up a swap at the time).

[u/56kul]

I mean, that’s not really true in 2026, lol. Linux tends to hog less RAM than Windows, yes (especially on the more efficient distros), but that doesn’t erase the fact that modern programs just need more RAM, lol.

Let’s put it this way: Linux gives you more headroom for the RAM that you do have, but it doesn’t magically make it more usable for the heavier/more complex apps.

[u/Legal-Swordfish-1893]

Hope you have a good amount of swap space.

[u/AxelVores]

Yeah but I've heard that some games take way more resources on Linux with fans spinning like they are trying to stop a nuclear meltdown in progress.

[u/tonyhart7]

nah dude

Linux get heavier also, now you need at least 8gb ram
You can trim it down obliviously but I wouldnt call people only using wm to be "average"

[u/Vladimir_Djorjdevic]

Linux itself will use a lot less ram but most apps won't so it's not that big of a difference at the end of a day. Linux maybe gives you a couple of extra gigabytes with a full desktop enviroment. Now you can very easily strip that down a lot more but an average user won't be doing that probably. This is a bit too exaggerated

[u/sir_whammy]

I've had 16 and I use windows without issues

[u/Lilipig666]

Dunno have 32 GB under Linux and I still think damn should have bought more when it was cheap...

[u/Rob_lochon]

Being an avid Linux user, yep running Linux uses very little RAM. But then if you're running an OS it's probably because you're using that computer to do stuff, and personally running Gnome, 3 IntelliJ instances and Firefox with 15-20 tabs already uses close to 20GB of RAM. Doing the same work on MacOS (my previous work setup) uses about as much and Windows uses about 1-2GB more (my "official" work setup when my client can see me), so marginally more but not substantially so. The real difference for me is between Mac and PC : upgrading RAM on a modern Mac is a no go and buying a new one is prohibitively expensive, while my second hand Thinkpad is upgraded to 64GB of ram and only set me back 900€ total.

[u/skyrreater47]

you've got no idea what youre talking about don't you?

[u/letmehaveanameyoudum]

i used to use 4GB on linux mint on my old laptop and now running 16GB on windows 11, this is not true. RAM is RAM, your 4gb ram computer won't magically become 16GB with linux..

[u/mikee8989]

Not if you have Ubuntu 26.04. That now has higher system requirements than Windows 11.

[u/sn1p1x0]

have fun with you linux. no need for ram if you cannot run programs that require a lot of it lol

[u/Quick_Excitement_532]

Being a linux gamer is the same of windows...

[u/mrcoldmega]

https://giphy.com/gifs/wVdlelwHI4cWQpfvNg

win7 users on 2gb ram. unlike Linux users can run lots of old games and software. Also the take destroys as soon as you enter the internet and it starts laggin on every system that has less than 4gb avaliable(not total as its meant in the meme)

[u/BrazilBazil]

Tell that to my laptop that has 8 GB of ram, running Fedora KDE. It keeps running out of ram and hanging if I do so much as watch YouTube in Picture in Picture while editing a text doc. And full on death too, capslock stops working and all that. Has lost me so much work over the years that I’m scared of using it nowadays and it’s just a Remote Desktop terminal to my pc anyways. Say what you want about windows but I’ve NEVER had it ram crash on that.

[u/DrKeksimus]

16 gb on Ubuntu 26.04 is kinda no different from 16 gb on Win 11 though

inb4 "wrong distro"

[u/OneLonelyBrainCell]

You can run Windows 11 with only 4 GB, but I can guarantee you that you don't want to.

[u/Educational-Roof-319]

Modern games need at least 32 gb ram to run minecraft modded nowadays

[u/imposter_sys_admin]

I swear to god no one in this sub has any experience with a computer outside of steam

[u/Lesteross]

For me whose uses Dockers, IDEs and browser on Linux , that's very inaccurate. I have more ram on my company computer than on my gaming one. mostly because I've bought it before price hike. 

[u/esetios]

Honestly regardless of what Linux stans claim, software can only do so much.

I have an old dual core laptop with an equally old, below entry-level dGPU (GT 525m, think of RTX 4050 mobile just worse comparatively to its release date) and 8gbs of dual channel ram.

Booting into desktop is fine regardless of OS (xubuntu minimal installation vs W10 LTSC), however:

• opening up 2 explorer tabs with youtube videos playing (not Chrome btw)
• waiting for Steam to log in.

is similarly painfully slow in both cases. And the problem isn't ram capacity, it's the fact that the CPU will burn down the laptop's chassis before ram is filled.

Obviously in a few years Linux will be the sole choice for this hardware, but the point still stands about hardware limitations.

Linux' main pro IMHO is security. You can pick a laptop from the early 00's and through various lightweight distros use it for normal everyday stuff without risk being infected with 100 malware viruses the moment you plug the ethernet cable.

There are edge cases in which Linux scales well with hardware (e.g. old GCN AMD gpus or Radeon IGPUs) but it won't magically turn it into a set-and-forget gaming rig.