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Given that efficiency one of Linux's most touted advantages, what in the world is Ubuntu's PR department thinking? Ubuntu isn't providing any more functionality

by curt15 6mo ago

Given that efficiency one of Linux's most touted advantages, what in the world is Ubuntu's PR department thinking? Ubuntu isn't providing any more functionality than when its memory requirement was 4GB. What is hogging all that extra ram?

dangus 6mo ago
Besides the correct answer that Canonical sucks, I would argue that “efficiency” is not a selling point to get someone to use a desktop operating system. Mainstream users and business organizations don’t really understand that concept and would prefer to see how the operating system enables their use cases and workflows.
- sam345 6mo ago
  This is changing. 8 GB will be more normal given ram shortages. See apples neo..
  - dangus 6mo ago
    Apple under-speccing their machines like they’ve been doing since the dawn of time is not some kind of indicator of any trends. You can buy $350 PC laptops that come with 12GB of RAM (example: https://www.staples.com/asus-vivobook-x1404-14-laptop-intel-core-i5-1334u-12gb-ram-256gb-ssd-windows-11-home-x1404va-i512256/product_24657529 https://www.staples.com/asus-vivobook-x1404-14-laptop-intel-...) RAM shortages will be quite temporary. Making predictions based on individual component shortages has never been a winning strategy in the history of the industry. Next you’ll tell me that graphics cards will be impossible to get because of blockchain.
  - Our_Benefactors 6mo ago
    No, 8GB is still the bottom of the market, and the ram shortage is past its worst days already.
    - curt15 6mo ago
      Chromebooks still start out at 4GB (example: https://www.acer.com/us-en/chromebooks/acer-chromebook-315-cb315-3h-cb315-3ht https://www.acer.com/us-en/chromebooks/acer-chromebook-315-c...), and it's not like Google Chrome is lighter on RAM than Ubuntu's default browser.
    - pacifika 6mo ago
      https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/memory/ https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/memory/
shadowgovt 6mo ago
No official reason given, so all the tech press is basically speculating (if someone finds a source that does a teardown, please share; I can't seem to locate one). I think my favorite piece of speculation is that it reflects an anticipated modern workload of using the OS as a vector to launch a web browser and open multiple tabs in it, which is just going to be a memory hog as experienced by most Ubuntu users.
crest 6mo ago
The sad answer is: nobody cares.
embedding-shape 6mo ago
> what in the world is Ubuntu's PR department thinking? The same as any other corporate PR department: "At least now when people run it with N GB of RAM, we can just point to the system requirements and say 'This is what we support' rather than end up in a back-and-forth" If you expect them to have any sort of long-term outlook on "Lets be careful with how developers view our organization", I think you're about a decade too late for Canonical.
imtringued 6mo ago
I don't know what Ubuntu is doing with the RAM but I'm constantly swapping with all of the 16GB RAM filled on my work laptop with Ubuntu. At home I have a desktop running Arch plus Gnome with 32GB RAM and I am at 7GB on a normal day and below 16GB at all times unless I run an LLM.

by curt15 6mo ago

dangus 6mo ago

Besides the correct answer that Canonical sucks, I would argue that “efficiency” is not a selling point to get someone to use a desktop operating system. Mainstream users and business organizations don’t really understand that concept and would prefer to see how the operating system enables their use cases and workflows.

sam345 6mo ago
This is changing. 8 GB will be more normal given ram shortages. See apples neo..
- dangus 6mo ago
  Apple under-speccing their machines like they’ve been doing since the dawn of time is not some kind of indicator of any trends. You can buy $350 PC laptops that come with 12GB of RAM (example: https://www.staples.com/asus-vivobook-x1404-14-laptop-intel-core-i5-1334u-12gb-ram-256gb-ssd-windows-11-home-x1404va-i512256/product_24657529 https://www.staples.com/asus-vivobook-x1404-14-laptop-intel-...) RAM shortages will be quite temporary. Making predictions based on individual component shortages has never been a winning strategy in the history of the industry. Next you’ll tell me that graphics cards will be impossible to get because of blockchain.
- Our_Benefactors 6mo ago
  No, 8GB is still the bottom of the market, and the ram shortage is past its worst days already.
  - curt15 6mo ago
    Chromebooks still start out at 4GB (example: https://www.acer.com/us-en/chromebooks/acer-chromebook-315-cb315-3h-cb315-3ht https://www.acer.com/us-en/chromebooks/acer-chromebook-315-c...), and it's not like Google Chrome is lighter on RAM than Ubuntu's default browser.
  - pacifika 6mo ago
    https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/memory/ https://pcpartpicker.com/trends/price/memory/

shadowgovt 6mo ago

No official reason given, so all the tech press is basically speculating (if someone finds a source that does a teardown, please share; I can't seem to locate one). I think my favorite piece of speculation is that it reflects an anticipated modern workload of using the OS as a vector to launch a web browser and open multiple tabs in it, which is just going to be a memory hog as experienced by most Ubuntu users.

crest 6mo ago

The sad answer is: nobody cares.

embedding-shape 6mo ago

> what in the world is Ubuntu's PR department thinking? The same as any other corporate PR department: "At least now when people run it with N GB of RAM, we can just point to the system requirements and say 'This is what we support' rather than end up in a back-and-forth" If you expect them to have any sort of long-term outlook on "Lets be careful with how developers view our organization", I think you're about a decade too late for Canonical.

imtringued 6mo ago

I don't know what Ubuntu is doing with the RAM but I'm constantly swapping with all of the 16GB RAM filled on my work laptop with Ubuntu. At home I have a desktop running Arch plus Gnome with 32GB RAM and I am at 7GB on a normal day and below 16GB at all times unless I run an LLM.