[MrRadar]

Assuming "daily driver" requires a modern web browser running modern web productivity apps I'd put the minimum at a Core 2 Duo with 4 GB memory. It wouldn't exactly be snappy but with a bit of patience you shouldn't be limited by the hardware. Throw in a GPU with hardware video decoding and you might even be able to watch YouTube in above-potato quality.

[lelanthran]

I've got a core 2 duo with 2GB RAM that I used for around 6 hours yesterday to write an application.

Only slightly noticeable waiting times when I accessed some sites, but it worked and the application works too.

[ladyanita22]

Which distro, though?

[lelanthran]

> Which distro, though?

Linux Mint Vanessa, running the Mate DE.

The program is a C program with a single Makefile. My workflow was (and still is, even on my desktop) using a Vim with three vertical splits:

1. A LHS split which is a terminal to run make and execute the program for testing

2. A RHS split with the program source code (single file program).

3. A middle split with the test input file and test output file (in horizontal splits).

Although it is just a single file, on my other C projects I've used the same laptop, with the same 3-vert-split Vim, with multiple tabs, so up to maybe 16-20 source files open at a time for a single project.

Building C projects is very fast, even on the Core 2 Duo/2GB RAM setup. Running a similar workflow but in VSCode on my desktop is less snappier than Vim on the laptop.

I haven't tried doing a Go project on that laptop yet with VSCode, but I am tempted to see what happens :-)

[ladyanita22]

I tried Fedora (Gnome) on a 2GB machine and it was struggling a bit (mind you, there were several services, such as PackageKit, taking too many resources).

But now I can tell why you're experience was good. Mate is a phenomenal desktop environment certainly, so 2GB is probably more than enough for a daily driver.