[nine_k]

Booting into Debian with most devices fully functional is great.

What I'd like to know is what software runs adequately under it in 4 GB RAM. Web browsing should definitely be possible, but I suppose it's limited to very few tabs. Some very lightweight DE could likely make it more usable. Running something like WezTerm + tmux as the DE could be even more economical, leaving some room for e.g. development tools.

[roryirvine]

Browsers and anything electron-based are your enemy.

Firefox is actually pretty good in low-memory situations, silently discarding tabs when under memory pressure, but the main benefit comes from being able to run proper adblocking. Chromium-based browsers just can't compete these days.

Otherwise, a bog standard Gnome-based Debian Trixie desktop should be pretty doable. I'm currently using an 8 GB machine with 3.7 GB RAM free - Firefox, evolution, gnome-calendar, and gnome-software are the only apps that using more than 100 MB, and none of them are obligatory.

[spijdar]

I haven't carefully profiled memory use, but in my experience, Chromium is so much more performant than Firefox on ARM devices that any difference isn't worth it. If you're using a lot of tabs, it might lean in Firefox's favor, but overall performance so strongly favors Chromium that I've given up trying to use Firefox on anything but my high performance machines. I'm not sure where the performance delta is coming from, but the whole UI and JavaScript anything are much more responsive on e.g. A73 cores with 4GB RAM.

[parlortricks]

Have you tried a firefox fork like Librewolf? Not saying it makes a difference but it feels faster on my desktop compared to regular firefox.

[fwip]

Seconding ad-blocking. I have a low-end phone (4GB ram, and a mediatek processor from 2018), and setting up DNS-based ad-blocking made a lot of sites go from unusable to usable.

[ge96]

Funny I'm using Ubuntu 24 i3 with vs code on a black 2008 Macbook

[sciencejerk]

How?

[ge96]

Just am, granted my app is basic JavaScript/Electron but yeah, I get these compulsions to buy old tech and use em. Like I bought 3 different ASUS Eee PC laptops and got pydantic ai to run on em with Python. It took hours to build the python wheels.

The 2008 MacBook has a weird smell, it has a new battery but yeah. thought it was perfume from the old owner but I guess it's a thing with these laptops.

I do have to use i3 though, Ubuntu's desktop freezes for a few seconds then continues on the Macbook.

[ge96]

Zooming a picture can crash the UI/make VS code go blank

[NooneAtAll3]

it's probably the "you only notice when it doesn't work" situation, but my experience with firefox on ram limit has been a lot about tabs forgetting the url in them

as in, I click "open in new tab", some time later I switch to them... only to get hit with "new tab", even though a moment ago it displayed tab name and I could right click -> bookmark to preemptively copy the address

[nine_k]

Try the "Auto tab discard" extension. It allows me to have hundreds of tabs "open" and (in combination with Tree Style Tabs) largely blur the line between "browser sessions" and "bookmarks".

[srean]

Far better than bookmarks.

Bookmarks do not store click history, the trajectory you took to arrive at the page. With tabs, the contexts is a backbutton away.

[roryirvine]

Yeah, agreed. The built-in tab discarder only kicks in when there's actual memory pressure, so can sometimes be a bit precarious. Auto tab discard happens way before that, so tends not to be affected in the same way. I guess it uses more i/o in total, but it's not noticeable on a system with a fast-ish SSD.

It can still be a bit iffy when memory's really tight, but even then a simple tab reload is usually enough to fix things.

[jolmg]

Haven't had that happen, but what I have had happen is that I open in a new tab, and it just displays this spinner in the middle of the window while on the tab. It never loads. I take the URL from the address bar and drag it into yet a newer tab and there it loads. Then I close the original new tab. Sometimes I gotta do that a few times for the thing to load. I tend to open in new tab with middle click, if it makes a difference.

[NooneAtAll3]

> I open in a new tab, and it just displays this spinner in the middle of the window while on the tab

oh, that happens too, all the time - I just got so used to immediately do "right click -> duplicate tab" in that case that it stopped bothering me

but tabs forgetting url causes this trick to fail (and yours too, there is no url to copy!) - so that's a pain point

[newsoftheday]

We use $200 inexpensive Lenovo laptops with 4 gigs of RAM and run KDE Plasma and Chrome as our streaming devices in the LR and MBR using air mouse device to control them. I also installed ZRAM on them. We could use Chromebooks but I like the idea of being in control of the OS in control of the machine.

[Barbing]

>[Firefox runs] proper adblocking. Chromium-based browsers just can't compete

Any familiarity with Safari and blocking performance? uBlock Origin Lite is a simple option, AdGuard can do more (injection?) though uBO feels more trustworthy still…

[epiecs]

A free option worth checking out: https://github.com/0xCUB3/wBlock . I have been using it on my mac and my mobile devices and it syncs up nicely and seems to perform well :)

[SoftTalker]

I prefer Firefox as well, I use it with a SOCKS v5 proxy over SSH to access internal sites at work from home.

I never have more than 4-6 tabs open so that would not be an issue.

[donw]

... I haven't seen an ad in years, thanks to Brave, which is as of the last time I checked Chromium-based.

[void-star]

I was thinking about Brave too while reading this thread. I’m not on a memory constrained system exactly but Brave seems to be tons snappier due to its as blocking. I wonder too if Brave is a case where you can pull it off and still take advantage of chromium based.

[NL807]

>What I'd like to know is what software runs adequately under it in 4 GB RAM.

I find this question rather sad.

[MarsIronPI]

I can run my everyday software stack (Emacs + Firefox + Dino) on my 3 GB RAM Pinephone. It's not as fast as my 8 GB laptop, but that's partly the CPU too.

Hope this makes you feel better.

[not_your_vase]

Can't speak for OP, of course.

Some time ago I got myself a similarly priced x86-64 Windows tablet on Amazon (Celeron N4020 + 4 GB RAM). I installed Linux Mint on it with a slightly customized kernel (some extra quirks were needed).

I connected an old SSD to it with a SATA2USB adapter, and I use it as a home file server and HTPC. It has a micro HDMI output, and it is connected to my TV. During the day it is playing music non-stop, in the evening it is playing some movies. It has no problem with high bitrate full HD movies, the CPU doesn't even break a sweat. I think it could also play 4K content, if I had any.

(Previously I used a Mac Mini with VLC for this for a few years, but I'm happier with my current setup, it's more stable)

[HlessClaudesman]

Yeah can confirm Mint XFCE works well on low end devices. The only bug I encountered is backups quickly swamping available HDD space, but it runs fine with auto backups off.

[elch]

Does it boot from the card? Is there an installation guide available somewhere?

[not_your_vase]

I find this to be a bit strange question considering that I haven't mentioned the tablet model... but incidentally the answer is "yes" to both questions - it can boot from sd card also (beside eMMC), and there is a setup guide available: https://github.com/biolds/tibuta-w100/ (somewhat similar to the OP one)

[singpolyma3]

Pretty much everything. I only had 4GB ram until two or three years ago. No swap. Never ran into an issue.

[logicchains]

>I only had 4GB ram until two or three years ago. No swap. Never ran into an issue

That sounds like an problem Windows could solve.

[pjmlp]

Windows traces back to running comfortably with 4 MB, and my first Linux distro, Slackaware run with 32 MB.

We can start by throwing all that Electron junk out of the window, pun intended.

[BobbyTables2]

Also sounds like a problem they don’t want to solve…

If people have to buy new PCs, that’s more $$$ for Microsoft.

[exe34]

I have 8GB, which I've had since 2012. Never had a problem - I run a lean Nixos with just xmonad and dmenu, chrome, emacs, and about a dozen open pdfs and video tutorials.

[niekkamer]

Same here still use my laptop with 8GB DDR4 with Manjaro running.

Since I have a desktop I do use rustdesk way more often to just boot into that.

[cbdevidal]

Y’all are embarrassing me with Lubuntu and Chrome on a 2013 Dell with 16GB and an SSD. Not fast enough for all I need to do but covers 80% of my needs. It’s my road laptop and the home desktop handles the rest.

But you’re doing much better than me.

[exe34]

Mine is a 2012 mac book air, I've replaced the battery early this year, and last month I upgraded the ssd to 1tb. I expect this computer will be a family heirloom after the apocalypse.

[yoctonaut]

This is delightful. I replaced the battery on my 2011 MBA some years ago, but it's been sitting (replaced for family use by a Framework). You're inspiring me to do something with it.

[exhilaration]

I'm curious, how much to replace the battery? I bought my kid a used 2015 MacBook Air like 5 years ago and it needs a new battery, otherwise it's totally fine.

[cbdevidal]

It still functionable

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/p1R9mpezxh0

[MSFT_Edging]

Hello fellow xmonad enjoyer. There's dozens of us out there.

[exe34]

Maybe even tens!

[nubinetwork]

Opening Chrome, Firefox, discord or Spotify instantly takes up 1gb on my laptop... so that already puts me at 3-4gb... someone needs to find out why kwin leaks so much shared memory, after a week of running that alone can take up a few gigs as well. My next laptop has 32gb at the very least.

[exe34]

Try xmonad.

[nubinetwork]

Sorry, but I'm not distrotube.

[exe34]

I've been using xmonad since 2016ish and it takes basically no resources.

[NooneAtAll3]

having many tabs is perfectly fine - it's having many *youtube* tabs is troublesome

main trouble to me has been caused by unity games - those are the big ram devourers, even most basic 2D ones (I still don't understand how that happens, why such regression since KSP days)

and plenty of 2D games work perfectly fine (devs really overestimate minimal requirements)

[Rohansi]

> main trouble to me has been caused by unity games

Generally it's probably just bad optimization. But that only gets you so far because Unity's asset streaming is designed to work with level-based games. It will only let you unload assets if you package them per-level and then swap them in and out at load screens between levels. Absolutely useless for games like KSP.

[NooneAtAll3]

> Absolutely useless for games like KSP.

and yet KSP flies fine, while visual novels crash

[Rohansi]

Can't blame the engine for all of the poorly made games!

[MarsIronPI]

Battle for Wesnoth can run on <4 GB.

[jolmg]

Got a PinePhone Pro with 4GB.

> I suppose it's limited to very few tabs

Not really. Haven't used it super heavily, but I haven't felt limited by tabs. It can handle multiple YouTube tabs, too.

> Some very lightweight DE could likely make it more usable. Running something like WezTerm + tmux as the DE

I use sway on it. It's perfectly responsive. I expect i3 with Xorg would also be. Neither count as a DE, but neither does a terminal + tmux.

[AlecSchueler]

I'm still using an old x200 with 2GB RAM as my daily driver. I just run xmonad and everything is pretty snappy. I can browse with multiple tabs without an issue, as long as I avoid very heavy sites like GMail.

[prmoustache]

What software doesn't run with 4GB of ram is the real question.

[SchemaLoad]

Most individual programs will run with 4GB but you won't be able to have multiple open at the same time.

[prmoustache]

It is really only a problem with electron apps that you can usually easily replace with opening the corresponding website on a browser and have more native and less memory hungry alternatives.

If you favor them over a huge DE, a distro with a lightweight window mamager / wayland compositor will only use around a hundred of megabytes, so with 3.8-3.9GB you have plenty of memory to run apps running on regular OS toolkits.

And having a bit of hygiene like exiting apps you are not actively using goes a long way.

[pjmlp]

A couple of Electron junk apps.

[imtringued]

The Claude Code installer doesn't.

[fsflover]

> What I'd like to know is what software runs adequately under it in 4 GB RAM

I daily driver Librem 5 phone running a Debian-based operating system with 3 GB of RAM. NoScript on Firefox allows me to browse quite well. Zram helps, too. By the way, unlike the discussed device, my phone runs a mainline Linux kernel.

[laughing_man]

I run Ubuntu on my Chromebook. It's what I'm using to read this now. Web browsing works just fine. There's a limit to how many sites I can have open at a time, but since I regularly view sites that use over 1 GB of ram in Chromium, that's the case on all my machines.

Most of the games I play run in 4 GB, but since my Chromebook only has 32 GB of storage, There are some I can't install and I generally only have four or five installed at any given time.

[pjmlp]

I originally ran Slackware 2.0 with 32 MB on a Pentium 75 Mhz.

So the software does exist, plus for the TUI and CLI folks, that would be plenty of space.

[Fnoord]

We also had a Pentium 75 MHz IIRC, but IIRC it came with 8 MB RAM. It came with OS/2 Warp. Running DOS on top of it was too limited, performance wise. Running MSDOS directly however, was amazing. The machine would run all the software I wanted. Apps and games. It also ran Windows 95, but the learning curve and speed. I was used to MSDOS.

[pjmlp]

OS/2 Warp was at the same level as running Windows NT in hardware requirements.

When I bought my 386SX 20 Mhz with 2MB, 40 MB HDD, that came with DR-DOS 5 and Windows 3.1, I could have bought a PC with OS/2 2.0 instead, in today's money that would have bumped my credit request in an additional 1000 euros, for the additional hardware.

So DR-DOS + Win 3.1 it was.

[bdavbdav]

Unfortunately I think just the SSL stack to support a TLS connection would saturate that now

[pjmlp]

Depends on how much browsing one is planning to do, which is why I focused on the TUI and CLI as examples on my comment.

Even if it is SSH to some cloud server it might be ok.

We lost quite a bit moving away from Internet protocols into everything is HTTP(S).

[LargoLasskhyfv]

Apparently there is a VIP-edition with 16GB RAM, still under 200$.

https://www.doogee.com/products/u10-vip-edition?variant=4431...

If that would be real RAM, and not only swap I'd feel tempted.

Edit: Never mind, already sold out...(meanwhile, 15 minutes, or so)

[tech4bot]

Is not real. RK3562 supports maximum 8GB.

[elch]

It's 4G just like the others:

16GB RAM (4GB+Up to 12GB Extended RAM)

[2OEH8eoCRo0]

I have a 4GB surface tablet running Fedora that I use for very light duty tasks like PDF reading or listening to music. The memory holds it back for much else because it begins swapping.

[briansm]

I had to read that twice, I first thought you meant 4 GB of _storage_...

Worrying about only having 4GB of RAM.... that's how I know I'm getting old I guess. Kids these days don't know they're born.

[tnelsond4]

I use dwm and brave and 10 tabs or so and I'm usually at about 2-3gb of RAM used.

[madduci]

With partial 3D acceleration, I guess web browsing is a bad experience

[tech4bot]

Only when it comes to videos or something that it requires to use the CPU instand of the GPU, but overall works good.

[throwaway27448]

Frankly if you don't need a web browser (or electron), what WOULD require that much memory? Video and photo editing maybe? Postgres? Recompiling the world?

[sellmesoap]

I first started recompiling the world with 64MB of ram, kind of funny how far we've come on hardware and made software gobble up the gains with very little to show for it.

[fnord77]

lynx

[Nezk]

Until a couple of months ago, I was using a Late 2013 MacBook Pro Retina with 4 GB of RAM as my main work computer (and I still use it as a secondary machine). It's amusing to read that some people can't imagine getting by with 4 GB of RAM on a device not meant for heavy work.