[papaf]

I committed the grave mistake of purchasing a laptop with only 8GB ram and I constantly run out of memory as a result.

I recommend that you try ZRAM. It has made a difference in a 8GB laptop that I use: https://www.cnx-software.com/2018/05/14/running-out-of-ram-i...

For 8GB I run a 2GB ZRAM swap.

[snazz]

How much “extra” RAM does that translate to for your workload?