Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

howtogeek.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 198 posts

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#111

Post by bogwog »

tuetuopay wrote: post #108
jstanley wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What use is there in display frame rates above 60 fps?

Outside of gaming, not much. However, now that I'm used to a 144Hz main monitor, there is no world where I would get back. You just feel the difference. So basically, no use when you've not tasted 120+Hz displays. And don't because once you do, you won't go back.

I have a 165hz display that I use at 60hz. Running it at max speed while all I'm doing is writing code or browsing the web feels like a waste of electricity, and might even be bad for the display's longevity.

But for gaming, it really is hard to go back to 60.

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#113

Post by WD-42 »

superkuh wrote: post #71
goalieca wrote: post #20

I hear a lot from linux users that found gtk 2 era on x11 as pretty close to perfect. I know i had run ubuntu and after boot it used far less than 1GB. The desktop experience was perhaps even slightly more polished than what we have today. Not much has fundamentally changed except the bloat and a regression on UX where they started chasing fads. I suppose the most major change on RAM usage is electron and the bloated…

Yep. I still develop Gtk2 applications today. It's a very snappy and low resource usage toolkit aimed entirely at desktop computers. None of that "mobile" convergence. I suppose you could put Gtk2 applications into containers of some sort but since Gtk2 has (luckily) been left alone by GNOME for decades it's a stable target (like NES or N64 is a stable target) and there's no need for it. Most of the bloat these days…

Can you point us to some of these gtk2 applications that you’ve been writing recently?

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#114

Post by cogman10 »

CoolGuySteve wrote: post #107
senfiaj wrote: post #69

From my understanding this is an official statement, not a benchmark result. > The change isn't about the core operating system becoming resource-hungry. Instead, it reflects the way people use computers today—multiple browser tabs, web apps, and multitasking workflows, all of which demand additional memory. So it is more about the 3rd party software instead of OS or desktop environment. Actually, nowadays it's recom…

No because as far as we know 26.04 won't enable zswap or zram whereas Windows and MacOS both have memory compression technology of some sort. So Ubuntu will use significantly more memory for most tasks when facing memory pressure. Apparently it's still in discussion but it's April now so seems unlikely. Kind of weird how controversial it is considering DOS had QEMM386 way back in 1987.

Zswap is a no brainer. I have to wonder why the hesitancy.

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#115

Post by anthk »

GrayShade wrote: post #91
ScislaC wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the option of legal compliance a bad thing? They have corporate customers. If there's no opt-out, that's a different story.

It's plain FUD. systemd always had fields for the full name, email address and location. They were optional, just like the date of birth. Bad systemd!

Is not FUD; the full name, email and the rest were not META/corporations mandated, which are lobbying for it so they can earn money with users' preferences. Get your spyware to somewhere else.

If META's business model is not lucrative, is not my problem.

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#116

Post by Tade0 »

jstanley wrote: post #82
mrob wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

XFCE is saddled with its GTK requirement, and GTK gets worse with every version. Even though XFCE is still on GTK3, that's a big downgrade from GTK2 because it forces you to run Wayland if you don't want your GUI frame rate arbitrary capped at 60 fps. For people wanting the old-fashioned fast and simple GUI experience, I recommend LXQt.

What use is there in display frame rates above 60 fps?

I, for one, lose track of the mouse way less often at 165Hz.

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#118

Post by senfiaj »

oreally wrote: post #110
senfiaj wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you enlighten me why it's misleading or uneducated?

[flagged]

You just read my comment very literally or carelessly. I mean in cases where it increases performance. It's not always that more memory = less CPU usage, but in many situations there is some tendency. For example, on older Windows, such as 98 or XP, applications draw directly on screen and had to redraw the parts of the exposed UI when windows were dragged (BTW, this is why many people, including myself, remember that famous artifact effect when applications were unresponsive on older Windows versions). When memory became cheaper, Vista switched the rendering model to compositing where applications render into private off-screen buffer. That is why moving windows became smoother, even though memory use went up. There is some memory / performance tradeoff, not always though.

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#119

Post by nickpsecurity »

heelix wrote: post #61
nickpsecurity wrote: post #32

I was testing them on a HP laptop I bought for $200 with 4GB of RAM. Windows, its default, used so much memory that there was not much left for apps. Ubuntu used 500MB less than Windows in system monitor. I think it was still 1GB or more. It also appeared to run more slowly than it used to on older hardware. Lubuntu used hundreds of MB less than Ubuntu. It could still run the same apps but had less features in UI (eg…

Consider a dedicated SSD for each OS. You should have a couple M2 slots in the laptop. What you can do is remove (or disable) the Windows SSD, install Linux on the second drive, and then add back the windows drive. Select the drive at startup you want to be in on boot and default the drive you want to spend most of your time in. I did that on my XPS and it was trouble free. Linux can mount your NTFS just fine, withou…

That's a terrific idea. It might address the other problem that I'd have little space for Linux apps. Thanks!

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#120

Post by HauntingPin »

senfiaj wrote: post #69

From my understanding this is an official statement, not a benchmark result. > The change isn't about the core operating system becoming resource-hungry. Instead, it reflects the way people use computers today—multiple browser tabs, web apps, and multitasking workflows, all of which demand additional memory. So it is more about the 3rd party software instead of OS or desktop environment. Actually, nowadays it's recom…

Also, the Windows 11 requirements are ludicrous.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windows-11-specifica...

4GB of RAM? What? I guess if your minimum is "able to start Windows and eventually reach the desktop", sure? I wouldn't even use Windows 11 with 8GB even though it would theoretically be okay.

Post reply on HN