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Why should the OS itself, which is just supposed to facilitate the running of programs, use so much memory?
TL;DR: to spy on you.
I was kind of humbled to see how much less ressources Debian was using.
It needed one GB of memory after install in full memory.
Meanwhile Canonical
https://www.techpowerup.com/347967/ubuntu-26-04-lts-raises-recommended-memory-requirement-to-6-gb?cp=2
While Ubuntu recommends 6GB, it still uses much less than that even if you open Chrome lol
If you enable zswap, you could probably live with 4GB
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Right?! I have a debian NAS running openmediavault, it has music streaming and samba network shares. it only has 256MB RAM and doesn't even use all that.
it shouldn't. the problem really boils down to devs for stuff that aren't optimizing anything.
For example I'm currently using a basic build Fedora 44 with Niri and a quickshell. I have 32gigs of ram on my current machine and at idle it uses just over 2gigs of memory. to me that's too much. Niri uses about 160mb but quickshell/noctalia-shell uses about 400mb. too much. I need to stop using it.
I use Foot as my terminal and that AT MOST will use 14mb of ram. that's it. I point to Foot and say "that's how things should be".
then adding something like a Browser and Discord into the mix and just forget about it. suddenly that 32gigs is being eaten alive. even today running a system on 16 is cutting it close because of the bullshit you need to run. I mean even a browser like Qutebrowser which SHOULD be light is going to eat ram because it's running python and qtwebkit crap. And don't get me started on Discord and ALL the various "we make discord better" apps that really don't. vestkop, vencord, eqowhatever, doesn't matter it's all electron which treats your ram as an all you can eat buffet.
Fuck Discord
Not at these prices it ain't. Back to 8 it is.
Why not Linux?
Linux at home yes. But corporate has insisted the price increases dont matter at my work as my bonus is engulfed.
Microsoft just straight up admitting that they're not optimising their OS anymore
32gb is the new standard they need to run poorly optimized start menus and telemetry in the background while they think no one is paying attention
I have 32 GB RAM in my linux box. Not because I need it (I use 5,7GB currently), but because it was kind of cheap when I build the box. 16 GB or 32 GB were just a few Euros apart.
But with the current RAM crisis? Holy crap, that is kind of a tone deaf statement
Im running Void on a 2013, dual core atom, netbook with 1800MB of ram, THAT is a compromise. No more than 4-5 tabs at a time, only one if I want to watch a video, but it works.
16GB being the minimum for a desktop OS is insane.
I suspect part of it is modern web browsers and everything being online. That and "web apps" and such that take up WAY to much resources for what they do. In the name of security and justifiably so, each tab typically has it's own thread/task which means more memory. They will free up as needed, but don't do well always. With so many people just keeping tabs open rather than bookmarking them, users have also changed how they use their computers. So 16GB being a minimum and 32GB being recommended seems reasonable for a NEW computer. Remember, software is just going to need more resources in the future.
Existing computers will be fine for a while longer, but will get to that "compromised" state eventually.
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Same here, but I put in 64GB because it was cheap. The only app I used (I don't anymore) that would make use of that much was Photoshop, back when I was still a graphic designer. Even then, I didn't need it, but it was nice to have.
In the middle of a RAM pricing crisis? Fuck off microslop.
A RAM pricing crisis they created through OPENAI, no less.
In reality, if software used the native UI toolkits instead of Electron, even 12 GB could be reliably used for gaming, HEAVY gaming.
Indeed. Now we're starting up a whole new OS sandbox for every damn app. It's ridiculous.
"Bully tells nerd to come to school with more lunch money next time" ass bullshit.
With 32 GB system RAM, Microsoft believes that the games can have more "breathing room".
There's no such thing as "breathing room", dammit. Once you set up 32 GB as standard, shitty / assumptive developers are going to say "well, we assooooome users have 32 GB. It would be a waste to design the game to use less than that lol lmao". Specially devs doing the same as Microslop, and using AI shitty code to pump out code faster than humans can desloppify.
They can fuck right off
"640KB of memory ought to be enough for anybody."
- Bill Gates
I can run a gba emulator, an llm, a full os and a browser all at the same time with 4gb, so I think Windows is the compromise
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Ofc if your OS needs just 6-7GB only for running itself and nothing else...
Slop code and CSS kids need that space!
Alright Linux guys... how much RAM do you use on a normal day? Not looking at you power guys who are running every damn thing to max out your 128GB...
I have 32GB but rarely hit over 8GB, probably less, unless I'm running some serious apps like graphics.
I got that 32GB because of Win10 to give me more comfort room. Now I don't need it as much running Linux.
I'm using 7/96G right now.
I have possibly over-spec'd.
Sell 64GB and retire early!
There must be more tabs. As soon as a critical mass of tabs are all in existence at the same time, the tab god will be born. This nascent entity will reshape the world, will purify existence
My OS uses about 700MB when I log in from a reboot, then I immediately load ~15GB of terribly optimized browser tabs, mostly for work (teams, google voice, discord, outlook, etc)
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I still remember that the first time in my life I gave any thought to RAM is when my childhood PC was upgraded from 1GB to 3GB.
I don't do radically different things on the computer nowadays than I did back then, yet that would nowadays be unusable.
This is rather insane
- I cant even access the source wccftech links to. So its kinda hard to judge how legit this is.
- Fuck MS and their bloated OS and apps. Also Electron slop apps and so on.
- With the RAM crisis the timing is obviously hilarious. But see 1. and this feels a bit outrage baity.
- I mean: Yeah. My 600 bucks PC in 2016 had 16GB of ram. Like its perfectly reasonable to proclaim 32GB is probably better if you want to run the newest game while multiple programs are running in the background 10 years later. Like duh.
Wow. Not too transparent are they? RAM prices go up worldwide. Microsoft - "We need you to buy more RAM to successfully run are mostly unnecessary, bloated crap".
Meanwhile i have a linux server that's currently running individual LXC containers for hosting
Snipe-it, zammad, paperlessNGX, wiki.js, rustdesk server, firefly III, flare, among a few other things. And it's barely using 6GB total. Less than windows sitting at desktop these days. It's pathetic how bad windows has become.
The only thing that needs so much RAM to fill my 32gb is local LLMs. (No, I'm not an Ai bro, just play around with it mostly.) On my old machine I never filled 16gb, and on this "new" machine I do not fill 32gb either with regular usage. 16gb is still pretty fine, if you do not use your computer like an animal and think about the applications you re using.
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Been that way for awhile but I imagine the ram shortage is going to lower it to 8.
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I’ve got 128Gb in my 20c/40t system, and 256Gb in my 44c/88t system.
But then again, I don’t game. I do a lot of data crunching, and let other apps like BOINC do their own thing when I’m not actively working.
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this post was submitted on 02 May 2026
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