[NoboruWataya]

I had a similar experience trying to use an old laptop with 2GB of RAM. I was surprised how much it struggled with basic tasks. I remember my first computer with 32MB of RAM. Obviously we live in a different world now but still, it's not like I was trying to do anything more ambitious than what I used to do on that PC.

[lutoma]

It is wild how bad things have gotten. I have a small Linux tablet with 8GB of RAM that I only really use for browsing. Even that runs out of RAM quickly when I open more than 20 tabs (depends on the sites of course). And more than 3 Electron apps pretty much always means game over.

15 years ago 8 gigabytes of RAM were "wow what am I going to do with all this space" territory.

[saltcured]

My first Linux PC was a 386DX-40 with 20 MB RAM and about 80 MB of HDD space.

I was able to run X Windows, Emacs, and gcc for university CS work. I had to use 8 bit psuedocolor graphics to have a decent sized desktop like 1024x768 or 1280x1024 (on a nice CRT).

But, I put it into a swapping frenzy by opening one JPEG that I had downloaded from an academic website. It was a high-resolution scan of some old manuscript, but probably lower pixel count than a typical smartphone photo from this decade.

Doing normal work also involved frequent swapping delays as you launched new programs and evicted old ones.

[Borg3]

Its a pathetic world.. and sad.. I have currently 2 browsers open and my memory commit is 370MB.. If I hear that Win11 uses 3GB of RAM idling, I really get shivers... WTF?! How is that even possible? Bloat is astronomical and yet.. Most people just does NOT care...

[joe_mamba]

> I have currently 2 browsers open and my memory commit is 370MB..

In what context?

>If I hear that Win11 uses 3GB of RAM idling

Modern Gnome and KDE distros with batteries included also idea at around 2GB RAM which is a useless metric anyway as Windows 11 also preloads frequently used takes and apps on boot.

[Borg3]

What do you mean what context? Just move yourself 10 years in past and see how RAM much web browsing used.. There is just no sane reason why it balooned so much.

Of course, progress needs to be done. Better graphics, more data.. But now all the consumption goes into shitty decoration with is useless and waste resources.

Other big usage is all that ads and tracking shit behind the scene..

[drnick1]

I recently installed Arch Linux on a fairly old (but not ancient) Intel T2 Mac, with the GNOME DE, and it uses less than 1.5GB of RAM. I went for the standard gnome package which as far as I can tell is "batteries included."

That leaves about 6.5GB for programs, which I think is acceptable.

[anthk]

Add ZRAM

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/ZRAM

[prmoustache]

Less than that, between 900MB and 1.2GB and that's due to file and stuff indexation. The good thing on Linux and BSDs is you can swap for a light wm/compositor and your back below 150MB idle.

[zahlman]

> Modern Gnome and KDE distros with batteries included also idea at around 2GB RAM

Really? I'm seeing 1.3 for Mint/Cinnamon.

[ValdikSS]

See my comment above.