this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2026
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You’ll need at least 6GB of RAM to run Ubuntu 26.04 LTS comfortably, as the upcoming version of the distro raises its minimum memory requirement for the first time since 2019.

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[–] passenger@sopuli.xyz 54 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (5 children)

No-one commenting seems to have read the article. They are raising the recommended specs due to desktop software and web sites being more resource intensive.

Edit: to add, I would not recommend 6GB RAM for desktop use to anyone. I would say the very minimum is 8GB nowadays.

[–] pHr34kY@lemmy.world 17 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

Agreed. It's an uphill optimization battle. We're now in a world where you need 6GB RAM to chat on Discord while scrolling Facebook.

Ubuntu and its apps (particularly Firefox) are incredibly efficient and respects your hardware resources. I can write a web page with a 5MB RAM footprint. It's when you open the New York Times that your swapfile gets face-slapped.

Funnily enough, an Ubuntu server will run on a half-eaten potato. I've got 16GB in mine, and I'm running servers for LAMP (Nextcloud and Wordpress), NTP, Samba, Mail, Jellyfin, tor, XMPP, CUPS and a few other things. It typically uses around 2GB at idle.

[–] paraphrand@lemmy.world 7 points 8 hours ago

How big could a websit… oh. Oh my.

[–] HuudaHarkiten@piefed.social 6 points 10 hours ago

I would say the very minimum is 8GB nowadays.

I had to check. I do have 8GB, wohoo!

[–] nyan@lemmy.cafe 2 points 10 hours ago

Depends on what you're doing. If you're okay with very limited Web use, even 2GB is viable (or was about a year ago when I retired that machine). More normal levels of Web use, you're going to need more RAM. Not sure about GPU-constrained loads like 3D modeling, as I never tried them on that machine. But other than those and some games, nothing on Linux should require even 8GB. Server systems can make do with even less.

[–] Mwa@thelemmy.club 1 points 10 hours ago
[–] PetteriPano@lemmy.world 20 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago) (2 children)

I have an idea of how they could reduce the fish requirements.

How about using shared libraries instead of bundling everything in every snap all the times?

Amazingly it reduces RAM usage as well.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 16 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

What is a reasonable number of fish though?

[–] Lawnman23@piefed.social 23 points 12 hours ago
[–] PetteriPano@lemmy.world 1 points 10 hours ago
[–] AbidanYre@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

You mean you don't like having three screens worth of saquashfs entries flash past when you try to run mount?

[–] TDCN@feddit.dk 4 points 12 hours ago (4 children)

Can we start calling Bloatbuntu like we call it Microslop

[–] not_IO@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 4 hours ago
[–] bnalways733@lemmy.world 1 points 9 hours ago
[–] krigo666@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)
[–] CapuccinoCoretto@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Thats when the person to your right hands you a slobbery spliff during puff-puff-pass.

[–] krigo666@lemmy.world -1 points 12 hours ago (1 children)
[–] CapuccinoCoretto@lemmy.world 1 points 12 hours ago

No, sorry, I got the spelling wrong. It slobluntu. My mistake. A portmanteau of slobbery blunt to you.

[–] CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

I’m not up on the flavours of Ubuntu, but I assume the LTS version is more server oriented and what in the name of whatever you hold holy is there that needs 6 GB to boot an OS? Have they ported bash to electron?

[–] cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

The server version requires 1.5 GB of RAM. That's still rather bloated considering Debian only requires 512 MB.

[–] CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 11 hours ago

Well, that’s a lot more sensible but still rather fat. Good reminder not to install Ubuntu then.

[–] tirateimas@lemmy.pt 0 points 12 hours ago

I guess it was inevitable (for multiple reasons). Fortunately, there are lighter flavors of Ubuntu. For the more experienced unwilling to spend their resources this way, there are always other distros.