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

171–180 of 198 posts

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#171

Post by bogwog »

tuetuopay wrote: post #164
bogwog wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Mine supports variable refresh rate, which means for most desktops tasks (I.e when nothing is moving), it runs at 48Hz. Incredibly, Linux has better support than windows for it on the desktop: DWM runs full blast, while sway supports VRR on the desktop. Windows will only enable it for games (and games that support it). Disclaimer: Wayland compositor required. It’s not enabled by default on e.g. sway because on some G…

I use KDE + Nvidia, and last I looked into it, it only worked if you had one monitor enabled. That's fine for gaming, not for working.

But it has been a while since I've tried it, maybe I should look into it again

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#172

Post by array_key_first »

Lerc wrote: post #86
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…

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.

A lot of it is optimizing applications for higher-memory devices. RAM is completely worthless if it's not used, so ideally you should be running your software with close to maximum RAM usage for your device. Of course, the software developer doesn't necessarily know what device you will be using, or how much other software will be running, so they aim for averages.

For example, Java applications will claim much more memory than they need for the heap. Most of that memory will be unused, but it's necessary to have a faster running application. If you've ever run a Java app at consistently 90% heap usage, you know it grinds to an absolute halt with constant collection.

The same is true for caching techniques. Reading from storage is slow, so it often makes sense to put stuff in RAM even if you're not using it very often.

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#173

Post by justsomehnguy »

b00ty4breakfast wrote: post #144
justsomehnguy wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But there are distros out there that can run easily in as little as 1G RAM It always make me chuckle when I hear this. Default server (ie no GUI at all) installation of a RHEL derivative just outright dies silently with 1GB of RAM if there is no swap. Sure with the enabled swap it no longer dies but to say what the performance is anywhere performant is to lie to yourself.

RHEL is not the be-all end-all of minimalist linux, even sans GUI. Puppy Linux, with a full WM, is completely usable with a single gig of ram. That's obviously a different use-case from RHEL but the point stands.

If the point is the minimal footprint then MS-DOS would win. Now install and run at least 70% of the software available even without EPEL in Puppy?

RHEL/RHEL-like, just like Ubuntu is thevgeneral purpose distroes and the point of the minimal sysrq for running is for them, not for the excercises in the RAM golfing.

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#174

Post by array_key_first »

curt15 wrote: post #137
shevy-java wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole linux stack got bigger though - just look at what you need now to compile stuff, cmake, meson/ninja, mesa, llvm and so forth. gtk2 was great; GTK is now a GNOMEy-toolkit only, controlled by one main corporation. Systemd increased the bloat factor too - and also gathers age data of users now ( https://github.com/systemd/systemd/pull/40954 ). I guess one of the few smaller things would be wayland, but this ha…

>The whole linux stack got bigger though - just look at what you need now to compile stuff, cmake, meson/ninja, mesa, llvm and so forth Those are all development tools. Has the runtime overhead grown proportionally, and what accounts for the extra weight?

Runtime-wise we use more garbage collected languages now. Java and such are great and can be very high performance, the real cost though is memory. GC languages need much more memory for book keeping, but they also need much more memory to be performant. Realistically, a Java app needs 10x the amount of memory as a similar C++ application to get good performance. That's because GC languages only perform well when most of their heap is unused.

As a side-note, that's how GC languages can perform so well in benchmarks. If you run benchmarks that generate huge amounts of garbage or consistently run the heap at 90%+ usage, that's when you'll see that orders of magnitude slowdown.

Oh also containers, lots more containerized applications on modern Linux desktops.

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#175

Post by pacifika »

Our_Benefactors wrote: post #35
sam345 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is changing. 8 GB will be more normal given ram shortages. See apples neo..

No, 8GB is still the bottom of the market, and the ram shortage is past its worst days already.

https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/memory/

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#177

Post by antisthenes »

I don't mind my OS using quite a bit of RAM, as long as UI elements are not drawn with HTML, and don't take as long to render as it would take to download a JPEG on a dial up connection in 1995.

Nothing in UI should take longer to draw than the human reaction time (~250ms). Most linux distros I tried pass this snappiness test with flying colors. Windows after Windows 7 don't.

Besides, Ubuntu is just 1 distro. There will always be alternatives on Linux for lower resource usage.

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#178

Post by jasomill »

tuetuopay wrote: post #164
bogwog wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Mine supports variable refresh rate, which means for most desktops tasks (I.e when nothing is moving), it runs at 48Hz. Incredibly, Linux has better support than windows for it on the desktop: DWM runs full blast, while sway supports VRR on the desktop. Windows will only enable it for games (and games that support it). Disclaimer: Wayland compositor required. It’s not enabled by default on e.g. sway because on some G…

Windows 11 idles at around 60 Hz in 120 Hz modes on my VRR ("G-SYNC Compatible") display when the "Dynamic refresh rate" option is enabled, and supports VRR for applications other than games (e.g., fullscreen 24 FPS video playback runs at 48 Hz* via VRR rather than mode switching, even with "Dynamic refresh rate" disabled).

* The minimum variable refresh rate my display (LG C4) supports is 40 Hz.

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#179

Post by jasomill »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #141
jstanley wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

> What use is there in display frame rates above 60 fps? On a CRT monitor the difference between running at 60 Hz and even a just slightly better 72 Hz was night and day. Unbearable flickening vs a much better experience. I remember having some little utility for Windows that'd allow the display rate to be 75 (not 72 but 75). Under Linux I was writing modelines myself (these were the days!) to have the refresh rate a…

120 FPS vs 60 FPS is definitely noticeable for desktop use. Scrolling and dragging are night and day, but even simple mouse cursor movement is noticeably smoother.

Re: Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

#180

Post by jasomill »

array_key_first wrote: post #174
curt15 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The whole linux stack got bigger though - just look at what you need now to compile stuff, cmake, meson/ninja, mesa, llvm and so forth Those are all development tools. Has the runtime overhead grown proportionally, and what accounts for the extra weight?

Runtime-wise we use more garbage collected languages now. Java and such are great and can be very high performance, the real cost though is memory. GC languages need much more memory for book keeping, but they also need much more memory to be performant. Realistically, a Java app needs 10x the amount of memory as a similar C++ application to get good performance. That's because GC languages only perform well when mos…

Programs that manually allocate and deallocate memory to store "huge amounts of garbage" can easily incur more memory management overhead than programs using garbage collection to do the same.

If a Java application requires an order of magnitude more memory than a similar C++ application, it's probably only superficially similar, and not only "because GC".

Post reply on HN