Ubuntu now requires more RAM than Windows 11

intothemild

Two things First, it sounds like this 6gb requirement is more like a suggestion/recommendation than a requirement. I also am curious if it actually actively uses all 6gb. From my own usage of Linux over the years the OS itself isn't using that much ram, but the application is, which is almost always the browser. Secondly. I haven't used Ubuntu desktop in years. So I have no real idea if this is something specific to them, but I do use Fedora, so I would imagine that the memory footprint cannot be too different. Whilst I could easily get away with <8gb ram, you really kind of don't want too if you're going to be doing anything heavier than web browsing or editing documents. Dev work? Or CAD, Design etc etc. But this isn't unique to Linux.

curt15

Given that efficiency one of Linux's most touted advantages, what in the world is Ubuntu's PR department thinking? Ubuntu isn't providing any more functionality than when its memory requirement was 4GB. What is hogging all that extra ram?

dangus

I imagine the choice of desktop environment has most to do with RAM requirements in Linux. Unrelated to this, despite Ubuntu’s popularity, I think it’s one of the worst distro choices out there, especially for including old kernels for essentially no discernible reason. I wouldn’t go so far as defending Microslop but I do get tired of the Apple fanboys accusing Windows of being bloated and running poorly. They seem to defend Apple’s 8GB machines by saying that Apple systems perform better than Windows with the same amount of RAM. This claim is entirely unsubstantiated. Windows has a lot of problems but performance and memory efficiency is not one of them. We should recall that Microsoft actually reduced RAM usage and minimum requirements between windows 7 and 8 as they wanted to get into the tablet game, and Windows has remained efficient with memory since then as Microsoft wants Windows to come with cheap Chromebook-like hardware and other similar low-end systems.

anthk

1: ZRAM exists 2: Win11 is not usable with 4GB 3: Trisquel 12 Ecne exists. You might need Xanmos as a propietary kernel because of hardware, but try to blacklist mei and mei_me first in some .conf file at /lib/modprobe.d. Value your privacy. Trisquel Mate with zram-config and some small tweaks can work with 4GB of RAM even with a browser with dozens of Tabs, at least with UBlock Origin.

Synaesthesia

The amount of people still on less than 8gb of memory is really small.

trekkie99

Is this a Ubuntu issue or a Gnome issue? What about Lubuntu, Kubuntu, etc?

bityard

Since the dawn of time, Microsoft has published the minimum system requirements needed to run Windows, not what you need to actually do something useful with it.

goalieca

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 world of text editors and other simple apps written in electron.

jmclnx

>Linux's advantage is slowly shrinking Maybe in some ways, yes. But there are distros out there that can run easily in as little as 1G RAM. And I heard people have used it with far less. I also remember hearing Ubuntu moved to default to Wayland, if true I have to wonder if defaulting to Wayland is part of the problem because Gnome / KDE on Wayland will use far more memory than FVWM / Fluxbox on X11. FWIW, you can do a lot just from the console without a GUI w/Linux and any BSD, in that case the RAM usage will be tiny compared to Windows and Apple.

nickpsecurity

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 search). It ran lightening fast with more, simultaneous apps. (Note: That laptop's Wifi card wouldn't work with any Linux using any technique I tried. Sadly, I had to ditch it.) I also had Lubuntu on a 10+ year old Thinkpad with an i7 (2nd gen). It's been my daily machine for a long time. The newer, USB installers wouldn't work with it. While I can't recall the specifics, I finally found a way to load an Ubuntu-like interface or Ubuntu itself through the Lubuntu tech. It's now much slower but still lighter than default Ubuntu or Windows. (Note: Lubuntu was much lighter and faster on a refurbished Dell laptop I tested it on, too.) God blessed me recently by a person who outright gave me an Acer Nitro with a RTX and Windows. My next step is to figure out the safest way to dual boot Windows 11 and Linux for machine learning without destroying the existing filesystem or overshrinking it.

Someone1234

Windows 11's 4 GB minimum is dishonest. You cannot reasonably run it on that little, it is far too bloated at this point. Even LTSC benefits from 6 GB, and that is substantially cut-down compared to retail/enterprise. I'd say Windows 11's real minimal is 8 GB in 2026, with the recommended being 16 GB. PS - And even at 8 GB, it hits 100% usage and pages under moderate load or e.g. Windows Update running in the background.

bjackman

The article itself acknowledges that the headline is bullshit: > 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 Basically the change reflects the fact that, at this level of analysis (how much RAM do I need in my consumer PC), the OS is irrelevant these days. If you use a web browser then that will dominate your resource requirements and there's nothing Linux can do about that.

whatevaa

Win11 barely works with 4GB. Like, you can have a browser with youtube on and that's it, 90%+ memory usage. I know because that is one of my media PC (instead of smart tv). Can't move to Linux because it's Intel Atom and Intel P-state driver for that is borked, never fixed.

shevy-java

Linux needs to go back to engineering again.

groundzeros2015

But we already know Ubuntu is the “worst” (most like modern windows, setup for media consumption, etc). You can install Debian and it gives you all that you are familiar with from Ubuntu.

estimator7292

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.

lokinorkle

Switched to SuSE a few years ago, still love it

senfiaj

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 recommended to have 8+ GB of RAM, regardless of OS. I just checked the memory usage on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS after closing all the browser tabs. It's about 2GB of 16GB total RAM. 26.04 LTS might have higher RAM usage but it seems unlikely that it will get anywhere close to 6GB.

gchamonlive

With arch+hyprland I hit 5GiB for a zen browser instance with 15+ tabs and a kitty instance with 15+ windows across 5 tabs, with codex and vim running. If ram is a problem there's always alternatives. The impediment is always having to rethink your workflow or adopting someone else's opinion.

a155

Maybe if FOSS was less focused on reverse engineering proprietary technology they could make products people LIKE. I say this as someone who learned about firmware because of several listeners and one group having the aim of reverse engineering my new Apple ecosystem that is now falling apart after signal traps. My crime was working for an ISP and the media, but I reported on Scienos not techbros. Yawn. I knew they were fucking with my virtual memory cause theirs sucks, the partition schemes on this Mac mini were ridiculous and the helpers weren’t stealing my information.