Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11 • Hacker News Board

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#121

Post by reilly3000 » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 2:30 PM UTC

> Linux's advantage is slowly shrinking

This is garbage writing. Linux’s advantages are numerous and growing. Ubuntu ≠ Linux. WRT RAM requirements, Win 11’s 4GB requirement isn’t viable for daily use and won’t represent any practical machine configuration that has the requisite TPM 2 module. On the other side, the Linux ecosystem offers a wide variety of minimal distributions that can run on ancient hardware.

Maybe I’m just grouchy today but I would flag this content if sloppy MS PR was a valid reason.

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#122

Post by anthk » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 2:30 PM UTC

estimator7292 wrote: post #58

Last time I touched an Ubuntu system, I had to diagnose why the machine suddenly had no available disk space. 1.5TB in /var/log All from the Firefox snap package complaining every millisecond about some trivial Snap permission. I'm glad I chose an OS without goddamn Snap. It's been unadulterated pain every time I've ever interacted with it.

Trisquel 12 Mate -codenamed Ecne- with the Xanmod kernel to cover propietary drivers, that's a more libre start than Ubuntu. If everything works with the libre kernel, you can toss the Xanmod kernel in the spot.

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#123

Post by duckmysick » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 2:31 PM UTC

For comparison, here are the official hardware recommendations for Debian: https://www.debian.org/releases/stable/amd64/ch03s04.en.html

"With Desktop" has 1GB minimum and 2GB recommended - along with Pentium 4, 1GHz cpu.

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#124

Post by fxj » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 2:32 PM UTC

God I miss openstep and CDE. It needs 16MB RAM (yes MB!) and together with a lighweight firefox clone you get everything you need. Eye candy is nice to have but not at that cost.

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#125

Post by listless » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 2:33 PM UTC

reilly3000 wrote: post #121

> Linux's advantage is slowly shrinking This is garbage writing. Linux’s advantages are numerous and growing. Ubuntu ≠ Linux. WRT RAM requirements, Win 11’s 4GB requirement isn’t viable for daily use and won’t represent any practical machine configuration that has the requisite TPM 2 module. On the other side, the Linux ecosystem offers a wide variety of minimal distributions that can run on ancient hardware. Maybe I…

I agree. And even on Ubuntu, the performance vs same specs on Windows is ridiculously better.

Apps are still a huge gap on Linux, but as an OS, I choose it every time over Windows and MacOS.

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#126

Post by KronisLV » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 2:33 PM UTC

senfiaj wrote: post #100

Lerc wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know 2GB isn't very heavy in OS terms these days, but it's still enough to hold nearly 350 uncompressed 1080p 24-bit images. There's rather a lot of information in a single uncompressed 1080p image. I can't help but wonder what it all gets used to for.

I also believe that this memory usage might be decreased significantly, but I don't know how much (and how much is worth it). Some RAM usage might be useful, such as caching or for things related with graphics. Some is a cumulative bloat in applications caused by not caring much or duplication of used libraries. But I remember in 2016 Fedora Gnome consumed about 1.6GB of RAM on my PC with 2GB of RAM a decade ago. Con…

I remember running Xubuntu (XFCE) and Lubuntu (LXDE, before LXQt) on a laptop with 4 GB of RAM and it was a pretty pleasant experience! My guess is that the desktop environment is the culprit for most modern distros!

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#127

Post by nickpsecurity » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 2:33 PM UTC

j16sdiz wrote: post #57

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…

> Ubuntu used 500MB less than Windows in system monitor. Those number meant nothing comparing across OS. Depends on how they counts shared memory and how aggressive it cache, they can feel very different. The realistic benchmark would be open two large applications (e.g. chrome + firefox with youtube and facebook - to jack up the memory usage), switch between them, and see how it response switching different tasks.

Thanks for the critiques and the tips. I might try that in future testing.

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#128

Post by leni536 » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 2:37 PM UTC

reilly3000 wrote: post #121

> Linux's advantage is slowly shrinking This is garbage writing. Linux’s advantages are numerous and growing. Ubuntu ≠ Linux. WRT RAM requirements, Win 11’s 4GB requirement isn’t viable for daily use and won’t represent any practical machine configuration that has the requisite TPM 2 module. On the other side, the Linux ecosystem offers a wide variety of minimal distributions that can run on ancient hardware. Maybe I…

FWIW I find even KDE plasma on wayland perfectly viable on a 4 GiB budget notebook. Windows runs horribly on the same hardware.

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#129

Post by osigurdson » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC

reilly3000 wrote: post #121

> Linux's advantage is slowly shrinking This is garbage writing. Linux’s advantages are numerous and growing. Ubuntu ≠ Linux. WRT RAM requirements, Win 11’s 4GB requirement isn’t viable for daily use and won’t represent any practical machine configuration that has the requisite TPM 2 module. On the other side, the Linux ecosystem offers a wide variety of minimal distributions that can run on ancient hardware. Maybe I…

Agree. I'm able to do development, run multiple containerized services (including Postgres, NATS, etc), have 10 browser tabs open, all on an 8 GiB laptop running Arch. I have a desktop with 64GiB as well but realized there is no point using it most of the time.

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#130

Post by wrxd » Sun, Apr 05, 2026, 2:41 PM UTC

The framing of the article is very odd.

It says that Ubuntu increase the requirements not because of the OS itself but to have a better user experience when people have many browser tabs opened. Then it compares to Windows which has lower nominal requirements but higher requirements in practice to get a passable user experience.