152
RAM (lemmy.ml)
submitted 1 week ago by cm0002@lemmy.world to c/linuxmemes@lemmy.world
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[-] shalafi@lemmy.world 27 points 1 week ago

Used to build "little old lady" computers for neighbors and such. Say someone gave me their shit PC to fix. Fine. Throw in whatever extra hardware I had, clean it up, new thermal paste and whatnot, small SSD, Linux Lite, Chrome, "Here's how you get email and internet." Never once heard from them again.

Here's the secret sauce; I never once mentioned "linux" or even began explaining what I had done. No need to talk OS, it was "windows" to them! I was there to fix computers, not evangelize.

[-] cRazi_man@europe.pub 20 points 1 week ago

As long as you "put the internet on the desktop", most boomers won't know the difference. I got my dad a new laptop and he asked me to "install Google maps on it". I put firefox on his desktop and changed the icon to a Microsoft Edge icon and that was easier to do than try to explain what a browser is and that he should use a different one.

[-] NikolaTeslasPigeon@lemmy.world 16 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

My dad once had trouble with Internet explorer crashing a computer in an auto shop he was working in.

I installed chrome which worked much better but he would not stop trying to open the Internet explorer icon.

Changed the chrome icon to IE icon. Problem solved. Lol

[-] shalafi@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

Yes! I've forged the icon more than once. "Just as ever, click the blue 'E'".

[-] FishFace@lemmy.world 22 points 1 week ago

The RAM impact of the OS is nothing compared to that of modern apps which are all browser-based.

[-] InternetCitizen2@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago

True, but if you are starved for ram, then minimizing the OS use gives more for the rest of the bloated apps you cannot control.

[-] Prunebutt@slrpnk.net 4 points 1 week ago

Just use the tui-alternative (implemented in Rust, of course). /j

[-] sanderium@lemmy.zip 19 points 1 week ago

The fact that one can use a wm/compositor to make the desktop lighter is sick. I was using 350MB idle with Alpine + River, it is so damn snappy.

I came to Linux for freedom and stayed for the performance.

[-] StrixUralensis@tarte.nuage-libre.fr 9 points 1 week ago

Let me intoduce you to sub 100MB idle on OpenBSD with BSPWM (80~90MB)

[-] sanderium@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 week ago

Damn, how low can one even go?

[-] felbane@lemmy.world 13 points 1 week ago

640K of memory should be enough for anybody.

[-] bigboitricky@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

Linux system requirements:

Electricity (optional)

[-] BartyDeCanter@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 1 week ago

I had a GUI on a computer with 256kB RAM on no hdd.

[-] Aimeeloulm@feddit.uk 2 points 1 week ago

I wrote a WIMP based gui on a ZX81 with 1Kb RAM, drop down menus used XORing, used keys to move cursor as no mouse back then, trouble was to make it useful for programs had to increase ram much higher like 16Kb, I used machine code and especially for low level graphics code, was fun to do ๐Ÿคฃ

[-] kwarg@mander.xyz 1 points 1 week ago

Im currently on my dwm journey, and im loving it

[-] mmmm@sopuli.xyz 10 points 1 week ago

Believe it or not due to third world issues I went with all of uni and part of my graduated life (2008-2016/17) with a crappy Intel Pavilion DV2000 which had Core2Duo and 3GB on RAM. With Gentoo. It went just fine for most daily stuff and some of my work as a graphic designer.

[-] StrixUralensis@tarte.nuage-libre.fr 5 points 1 week ago

Why use gentoo ? Was it worth it performance wise ?

[-] mmmm@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

No that I could tell - but mostly I switched to it because before it I used to use Ubuntu, and got fed trying to uninstall stuff I didn't actually need and it attempted to yolo a whole bunch of neccessary packages with it. It didn't had much storage either (120 GB) so that mattered a bit.

But I switched mostly because I didn't had internet at home or, when I could have it, it was completely shit: a 3G modem that went with no signal at all at any moment, not even moving it a single milimeter.

Trying to update Ubuntu offline was a huge pain in the ass: I needed to go to an internet cafe nearby, or at uni, and download the packages for the updates one by one (like, searching each one in packages.ubuntu, going to the results page, then picking the distro release, then picking architecture...), burn them to a CD or copy them to a usb stick and go back home to install them... only for it to tell me it was now needing some other bunch of packages, so rinse and repeat. I could do that even like 3 or 4 more times to update just a single frigging app - it was that or having to wait for a new Ubuntu release, and soon Canonical would end that program where they sent people an original Ubuntu CD to their address completely for free (iirc it was about 9.04/9.10 when they finished it). A couple of times I was so frustrated I carried the whole PC to a internet cafe to be able to update stuff I needed asap (new features on GIMP or Inkscape that would make my life easier).

Whereas with Gentoo it already had the --fetchonly flag, so you could just ran emerge with it and it would tell you absolutely everything you needed, so I could parse that output with sed or something to get all the package URLs and go to another computer with an internet connection and download them with some other tool, everything at once. I could then bring them home and update the thing in a single command. Of course it could take time to compile stuff but the updating process was much easier to me. So think like an IP over Avian Carriers or Sneakernet situation.

(Edited because of crappy grammar)

[-] surewhynotlem@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

Ugh.. do you even -O3?

[-] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 week ago

me remembering my first computer with 4mb of ram and 250mb of hard disk space.

[-] shalafi@lemmy.world 1 points 1 week ago

Mine first had 3K of RAM. An afternoon of coding would jam it out and I had to go back to remove spaces to save a byte.

`10 peek, poke, whatever

`10peekpokewhatever

[-] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 1 week ago

I am honestly amazed at how efficient puppy linux is, firefox is pretty usable on a 2gb (originally) windows XP machine.

[-] Underwire@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

I was running Plex, Jellyfin, Nginx, rtorrent with 3k torrents and few other containers and they were running on a very old machine with 4GB of RAM and only 2GB were really used.

[-] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 2 points 1 week ago

My Ubuntu install would beg to differ. It's a dog at 4gig

[-] drkt@scribe.disroot.org 3 points 1 week ago

Well that's because you're using a bloated distro. That's the cost of all those features.

My laptop, at 1.5 gigs of RAM, is blazing fast and has a smooth UX with a Debian+i3wm install.

[-] Fizz@lemmy.nz 0 points 1 week ago

Blazing fast as long as you are only text editing and dont open a web browser.

[-] drkt@scribe.disroot.org 1 points 1 week ago

Works fine with Firefox, but yes. That's 90% of what I do at a PC.

[-] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe -1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

The meme said Linux, it didn't specify a distro.

Nixe goalpost move though.

[-] rtxn@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Okay, Jimmy Neutron. The meme said Linux, it did not specify that it was a Linux-based OS. The kernel uses a roughly similar amount of memory, it's all the other crap in userspace that makes the difference.

If you want to be a pedant, get it right next time.

[-] ScientifficDoggo@lemmy.zip 1 points 1 week ago

What goalpost you potato? What was said basically amounts to "your experience differs because of (completely optional customizations)"

[-] Plebcouncilman@sh.itjust.works -1 points 1 week ago

Linux is not an OS.

[-] LoreSoong@startrek.website 2 points 1 week ago

Braindead responses and honestly probably just bait anyone passing through, ignore this fool. Ubuntu base install(gnome), in my experience uses less than 2gb of ram at idle. (Even less when using xfce or lxqt) Dummy added bloat to his system and then came on here to bitch about nothing. either that or hes a bot, troll or both.

this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2025
152 points (96.9% liked)

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