Meanwhile on my raspberrypi 4 running Ubuntu server:
And my tablet running stock Ubuntu:
this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2026
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8GB was barely enough 10 years ago. That's when I switched to Arch+KDE. Then KDE started using more. memory.
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In post PC ownership cyberpunk dystopia well all be running slack
I would be but I misplaced the “a1” disk.
Assuming around USD $220 for a 16GB kit of DDR5, it now costs $27.50 more to run Ubuntu.
How will this affect Linux Mint, and should I make my move to Linux Mint: Debian Edition?
It doesn't. If you're doing anything in a web browser you're going to need that much RAM for a reasonable experience no matter what DE you're using. Ubuntu are just trying to set more realistic expectations.
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Really unfortunate seeing GNOME is part of the problem here. Linux desktop environments shouldn't need to be tied to large RAM requirements, never mind increasing ones, for basic functionality. For example, the Start menu key was introduced by Microsoft in Windows 95, but this toggle still isn't available in most "light" desktop environments like XFCE.
The MacBook Neo, of all things, is chomping at the heels of the idea that pretty, feature-rich OSes need a lot of hardware to function.
I found a lot of flawed measurements which ended up measuring different things. This seems like a fairly respectable measurement even for being a few years old
https://itvision.altervista.org/linux-desktop-environments-system-usage.html
Simple environments like xfce or mate under X11 are around 600 MB. Gnome X 1300MB Gnome Wayland 1400. Seems pretty clear that gnome is a significant factor in the increase on the other hand most machines now come with 8-16
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If you don't like GNOME, Ubuntu officially supports other, less resource-intensive DEs, like Lubuntu, Kubuntu or Xubuntu
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I just checked Woot.com and you can get a refurbished Thinkpad with 16gb of RAM for $230. And there's a scratch and dent Dell netbook with 8gb of RAM for $60.
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My Tandy Sensation required 256MB and everything worked fine.
sorta funny as 16 is starting to feel cramped but I like headroom.
"Starting to"? 16GB is just a few tabs open for long enough.
Well thats the thing. For a tech person and compared to my peers I use pretty minimal stats. I only started feeling constrained by 8 like late teens and I was fine with 4 in the aughts. I guess my own personal ram usage level has been doubling although the aughts were insane. Having a 1 gig drive was a big deal coming into them and we had ram measured in kilobytes in a lot of our hosts. The pace of tech expansion in the first decade of the millenium is multiples of what we see after.
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