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I have 8GB of RAM, no swap. This is a Linux laptop and not a mac, but I don't think this makes a huge difference. I never run in to issues, except with some ga

by arp242 3y ago

I have 8GB of RAM, no swap. This is a Linux laptop and not a mac, but I don't think this makes a huge difference. I never run in to issues, except with some games and even that is rare. Up to last year I had 4GB of RAM. I ran in to issues with that sometimes, usually related to stuff I was doing with PostgreSQL. "Uses over 2GB of RAM at times" can be very misleading if you have large amounts of RAM; because it doesn't mean it can't work with less RAM. Why wouldn't the system keep stuff in RAM? It doesn't really cost anything to do so – "unused RAM is wasted RAM". All of that said, at this price point, and with the cost difference of 8G vs 16G in mind, I do kind of roll my eyes at their decision to sell these machines. My 8G machine is a €230 second-hand ThinkPad, not a €1,879 premium device (I checked: the 15" M3 w/ 512GB SSD comes with 8G of RAM at this price).

smcleod 3y ago
Linux does tend to use quite a bit less memory. Perhaps not if you run a full Ubuntu install with all its gnome extensions etc… but in general it’s a lot lighter as it has less integrated services / apps by default.
- arp242 3y ago
  Well I do tend to have some dev-related things running in the background like PostgreSQL, Docker, and things like that, so that rather offsets that. I also run a macOS VM sometimes (to test stuff), and that works reasonable well-ish (much better than Windows) with most of the issues being CPU bound more than anything else. Also Apple claims their "Unified Memory" is somehow more efficient. I don't really know what that means though.
  - smcleod 3y ago
    Docker / Containers are native to Linux within it's kernel, to run them on macOS you have to run a Linux VM which is overhead. The unified memory is indeed more efficient due to it's architecture but it can't solve not having enough ram to hold your software in.
    - arp242 3y ago
      > Docker / Containers are native to Linux within it's kernel, to run them on macOS you have to run a Linux VM which is overhead. That's not the point; just saying I run some services typical macOS users don't, so my Linux laptop isn't necessarily lighter than a default mac. Either way, it's perfectly possible to have a functioning 8GB machine, even with Chrome and an electron app. And it's certainly possible with 16GB.

by arp242 3y ago

smcleod 3y ago

Linux does tend to use quite a bit less memory. Perhaps not if you run a full Ubuntu install with all its gnome extensions etc… but in general it’s a lot lighter as it has less integrated services / apps by default.

arp242 3y ago
Well I do tend to have some dev-related things running in the background like PostgreSQL, Docker, and things like that, so that rather offsets that. I also run a macOS VM sometimes (to test stuff), and that works reasonable well-ish (much better than Windows) with most of the issues being CPU bound more than anything else. Also Apple claims their "Unified Memory" is somehow more efficient. I don't really know what that means though.
- smcleod 3y ago
  Docker / Containers are native to Linux within it's kernel, to run them on macOS you have to run a Linux VM which is overhead. The unified memory is indeed more efficient due to it's architecture but it can't solve not having enough ram to hold your software in.
  - arp242 3y ago
    > Docker / Containers are native to Linux within it's kernel, to run them on macOS you have to run a Linux VM which is overhead. That's not the point; just saying I run some services typical macOS users don't, so my Linux laptop isn't necessarily lighter than a default mac. Either way, it's perfectly possible to have a functioning 8GB machine, even with Chrome and an electron app. And it's certainly possible with 16GB.