-39
Please change title, we don't want clickbait here
this post was submitted on 06 Apr 2026
-39 points (16.9% liked)
Linux
13262 readers
227 users here now
A community for everything relating to the GNU/Linux operating system (except the memes!)
Also, check out:
Original icon base courtesy of lewing@isc.tamu.edu and The GIMP
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
Yeah, sure. Why don’t you actually try running Windows 11 with 4GB of RAM.
I did once. And I’m still waiting for start menu to load.
| Category | Ubuntu 26.04 LTS | Windows 11 | |
|
|
| | Processor (CPU) | Dual-core 2 GHz or faster processor | 1 GHz or faster, 2+ cores | | Memory (RAM) | 6 GB minimum | 4 GB minimum | | Storage | 25 GB free disk space | 64 GB or larger storage device | | Architecture | 64-bit only | 64-bit only | | Security Hardware | No TPM requirement | TPM 2.0 required |
That laughably understates the RAM required for Windows to be useful.
if you run Windows 11 on 4GB ram, it's just to stare at a UI. The ms you click anything, it crashes.
"a big jump from 4GB to 6GB."
Lol.
Biggest thing that I think is pretty badly phrased... is linux "system requirements". considering in the windows world if you try and install with less than the required ram... the installer will usually stop you.
While in ubuntu they may say "requirement" but it's a recomendation. You can install 26 into a VM with 1 GB of ram... and it will run. Really nothing in this version of ubuntu is more resource hungry than the previous version. So in short them boosting the number is just saying "if you use a typical amount of tabs open in your browser, 6gb ram is kind of needed".
So yeah I'd say most likely the fair way to put it is, windows 11 will let you install on 4gb of ram... but most would say it's very unusable even at a basic level with that, you can run ubuntu with that... it will probably not be a great experience, but not as bad as windows until you start running into large web apps or tons of tabs.
Heck OS's really could just have an "overhead" kind of number or something. Because that's the real thing, what you need is system specs that can handle your
system kernel + system services > Interface (be it terminal or gui) > application (and if that application is loading external sources like web pages, add that in too).
Point is your "minimum" line, should stop at what you consider the default parts of your distribution. IE interface and below.
Obviously no one is using it without applciations, but we don't know what applications people are using. It's not like we do this for storage. IE we aren't saying "ok yeah everything we included is within 5 GB, so we're setting the requirement at 200 TB because you can't be a video editor without that much space.
Uhm fake? And they even omitted system requirements from Microsoft's list?!
At least Ubuntu doesn't require TPM 2.0 security bits! That's a silly restriction whose only purpose is to create more e-waste and more money to Microsoft
And yes, as others have said, Win11 with 4 GB of RAM is not nice. I force-upgraded a Win10 laptop with 4GB of ram (but no TPM 2.0 chip) and mouse clicks were quite slow to register, and all the menus took their sweet time to load up. Yikes. And I am certain it was the lack of memory causing the performance hitches, not the missing TPM 2.0 chip. Installing Mint on it lets it live for another day, hooray! Still slow, but usable enough as a computer. I now run a much newer laptop with EndeavourOS (w/ KDE Plasma) and I enjoy it a lot!