You’ll need at least 6GB of RAM to run Ubuntu 26.04 LTS comfortably, as the upcoming version of the distro raises its minimum memory requirement for the first time since 2019.
No-one commenting seems to have read the article. They are raising the recommended specs due to desktop software and web sites being more resource intensive.
Edit: to add, I would not recommend 6GB RAM for desktop use to anyone. I would say the very minimum is 8GB nowadays.
Agreed. It’s an uphill optimization battle. We’re now in a world where you need 6GB RAM to chat on Discord while scrolling Facebook.
Ubuntu and its apps (particularly Firefox) are incredibly efficient and respects your hardware resources. I can write a web page with a 5MB RAM footprint. It’s when you open the New York Times that your swapfile gets face-slapped.
Funnily enough, an Ubuntu server will run on a half-eaten potato. I’ve got 16GB in mine, and I’m running servers for LAMP (Nextcloud and Wordpress), NTP, Samba, Mail, Jellyfin, tor, XMPP, CUPS and a few other things. It typically uses around 2GB at idle.
Why did you call them LAMP?
Linux Apache MySQL PHP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAMP_(software_bundle)
See also WAMP and MAMP. For windows and macOS
Novice here, is there a viewer mode that doesn’t load all that bullshit
Yes, firefox android has a reading mode. Unsure what it loads but it rules. Does not work on all pages but many benefit from it
How big could a websit… oh. Oh my.
I would say the very minimum is 8GB nowadays.
I had to check. I do have 8GB, wohoo!
Depends on what you’re doing. If you’re okay with very limited Web use, even 2GB is viable (or was about a year ago when I retired that machine). More normal levels of Web use, you’re going to need more RAM. Not sure about GPU-constrained loads like 3D modeling, as I never tried them on that machine. But other than those and some games, nothing on Linux should require even 8GB. Server systems can make do with even less.
The desktop software in question is GNOME, which is an integral part of the OS… So it’s definitely true that part of the bloat is because the software running the OS itself is now using more RAM.
Agreed.
AFAIK perfomance and low resource usage has never been a main objective of this distro
Ubuntu is bloated
Debian requires at least 512MB of memory and 4GB of hard disk space for installation.
Memory requirements does not mean that something is bloated.
Windows XP required 64 MB of RAM. Does it mean Debian is bloated then?
2026 Debian Vs 2001 windows?
Or 2001 Debian Vs 2001 windows?Cause 2001 Debian 2.2 was like 4MB ram, maybe 16 if you are really going for it!
https://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/projects/omnibook/boot-floppies/current/doc/ch-hardware-req.en.htmlSo yeh, let’s continue comparing apples and oranges.
FreeRTOS is bloatware cause we were able to orbit a sphere that could reflect radio waves with a bunch of tubes and a handful of germanium.What the fuck is this “windows xp Vs modern Debian” shit?
There’s a “minimal” install that gives you a bare desktop. The only thing I would consider bloatware is snapd.
I have an idea of how they could reduce the fish requirements.
How about using shared libraries instead of bundling everything in every snap all the times?
Amazingly it reduces RAM usage as well.
What is a reasonable number of fish though?
3.5 lbs.
How much is the fish?
My man!
Six-seven
You mean you don’t like having three screens worth of squashfs entries flash past when you try to run mount?
So at this rate I’m about 10 years I’ll need 9gigs of RAM? Thats not bad for what Ubuntu is.
What are you so surprised about? Ubuntu is aiming to replace Windows and is moving in a similar direction. The minimal effort required for installation and use is offset by the increased hardware requirements.
Minimal effort installation doesn’t increase hardware requirements. The problem is bad desktop software and websites, you get the same problem with Gentoo.
I guess it was inevitable (for multiple reasons). Fortunately, there are lighter flavors of Ubuntu. For the more experienced unwilling to spend their resources this way, there are always other distros.
I’m not up on the flavours of Ubuntu, but I assume the LTS version is more server oriented and what in the name of whatever you hold holy is there that needs 6 GB to boot an OS? Have they ported bash to electron?
The server version requires 1.5 GB of RAM. That’s still rather bloated considering Debian only requires 512 MB.
Well, that’s a lot more sensible but still rather fat. Good reminder not to install Ubuntu then.
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