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This goes two ways, everyone with less ram will probably don’t know about Linux and just lose their laptop (not upgradable ones) and: new built laptops will have more ram and better CPUs. And guessing with the windows handheld industry this also boosts them. But it’s gonna be a big shame people just abandoning their tech because of not enough knowledge.
This is like people abandoning a stick shift and rigid frames/chasses for modern automatic/CVT and and unibody with crumple zones. The latter are complicated, expensive, and inefficient - but substantially more forgiving to the average driver who merely wants to get from A to B with the minimum amount of effort. Linux will be there for people who choose to dedicate hundreds of hours a year to the hobby of computers. For everyone else who doesn’t want to open their laptop to replace the keyboard, update their wireless card, and clean or replace the system fans and solder in a new power connector, buying a new laptop with the extra horsepower (to overcome the code creep) will offer them all those things at a price cheaper than even taking them to the corner repair shop to get the mechanical failures fixed.
Linux will be there for people who choose to dedicate hundreds of hours a year to the hobby of computers.
And my grandma. She’s been running Linux just fine for the past 3 years. I don’t think she even knows what an OS is.
That’s a bit hyperbolic. You’re talking as if it’s still early 2000s. Many Linux distributions have very good user experience for beginners and better out-of-the-box device driver support than even Windows.
I choose one of those niche distributions since I have advanced requirements. But I have observed a steady decline in hardware-related issues over the years. In fact, Linus Torvalds confirms this in an interview.
Linux distributions are a viable alternative to Windows these days. But what keeps people away from it is misinformation and FUD like these.
Going to need 32 GB of RAM or more plus a GPU with 48 GB of VRAM just to run Win12 w/ AI subsystem so you have enough headroom to run a program or two
my first computer was a tandy sensation which has 4mb of ram and a 100mb hard drive
My new PC has 64g ram. But I’m also not using or plan to use windows. Checkmate M$!
But in all seriousness, 8g is like, the foundational minimum these days. Sad tbh. Browsers are so bloated these days. I’m surprised that browsers haven’t become their own OS yet. It kinda feels that way in some environments.
Phones are coming with 12Gb and Apple are still only putting 8Gb in their ‘pro’ line.
🙃
Does it really matter though that iPhone has less RAM? Their architecture is super efficient and can get by with less than android bloat.
Oh not their phones. Their $1799 14” MacBook Pro.
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Well, Chrome OS is a thing.
ChromeOS is more of an OS built to optimize a browser though. Its close though.
I may have 128Gb in my current rig (Dell Precision T7610), but if this is the way you’re gonna be bloating Windows 12, imma gonna be running to OpenSUSE or some BSD.
Yes, I use Win10Privacy to lobotomize all of the spyware and cruftware that comes with Windows. But it’s gotta be re-run after every significant Windows update.
Another reason to move to Linux ;P
Ubuntu is by far the most popular distro and it is no more efficient than Windows, on the contrary. RAM usage in particular is worse.
Try Linux Mint with XFCE. I don’t see this RAM usage issue at all. I have Firefox open with several other apps in the background again running XFCE with Linux Mint (Based on Ubuntu), it’s using 1.9GB RAM total (thus below the 2GB).
My next Windows PC doesn’t need any RAM, because I’m not going to need one.
My next OS will be some kind of Linux. I just had to reinstall Windows 11 because it corrupted it’s install after some time. I had to uninstall so much crap and regedit so many thinks just to get it back to where I was before. I don’t want Bing search in my windows search results. I don’t want your stupid widgets and I don’t want your browser or 90% of your default apps. And no I don’t want office 360 or onedrive. So stop forcing it into my face. When Linux gets Plasma 6 and HDR support there is only holding me back my Nvidia GPUs Linux compatibility. While I hah to install windows 11 again I played a lot of games on my Steam Deck! It’s is awesome and only some games with obscure anti cheat don’t run. (well some times they don’t run on windows too)
Just saying, but tweaking stuff via regedit is a surefire way to get your Windows install corrupted sooner or later.
dism, sfc… and disabling the preview update channel, are your friends to have a stable Windows install.
If you don’t want Bing results in your search, then use something like Everything to search for files. It’s faster, and will only show you files, all of them.
The widgets you can disable, and with Powertoys even bypass the start menu completely.
It already does imo
I love to bash MS, but this feels like an industry-wide trend to /never/ care about optimizing beyond the bar of “typical specs of new devices in rich countries”. I’m guessing it’s just to limit labor costs, and computers are less-rapidly-improving than the 90s/00s?
Code optimization has pretty much fallen by the way side since ram prices keep going down and cpu performance keeps improving.
Why spend the time if you don’t have to?
Browsers are some of the worst culprits.
Just for the sake of a beautiful audited and blazingly fast codebase that tuns qo good that Raspberry Pi user can run your stuff too.
I love optimisation!
Browser canvas is one of the worst culprits: it has to keep a buffer with an uncompressed bitmap several screens in size.
Old browsers used to keep a single screen worth of canvas buffer, then redraw stuff as you scrolled… which made it a horrible experience. You can still find some of that with “clever” web designs where they replace fonts or move things dynamically as you scroll.
Then you have websites with “infinite scroll” that just keep increasing the canvas buffer size more and more and more, to infinity and beyond… and people wonder why their Facebook or Reddit tabs use so much RAM.
premature optimization is the root of all evil - Donald Knuth
which does not excuse a total lack of optimization, but gotta hit those kpi’s
I will have no next windows PC anyways. I’ll go out of my way to get one without a windows license, to put linux onto it :)
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Unfortunately they don’t ship to norway (or have a norwegian layout available). But would really like one if/when they do. Not in a rush to get a new laptop now though. I’ll keep framework in mind when its time for a new one.
All this will do is push standard users into more expensive machines. Which, well, yeah, that’s the point.
I mean, 16GB? Is anyone who’s aware of RAM needs on a workstation accepting that in the first place? I’d love to run a poll and see who’s running less than 32. 16 was luxurious 15 years ago.
I take it you don’t know much about enterprise IT. I guarantee most businesses are running 8-16GB as standard. Where I live an 8GB laptop costs $1400, the equivalent with 16GB costs $1900. And to get 32GB you’re looking at an additional $1600.
Just saying, but… Lenovo ThinkPad E15 gen4, 8GB RAM, 256GB SSD, for 500€ on last year’s Amazon’s Black Friday… plus 70€ for an additional 32GB RAM stick.
Anyone at “enterprise IT” spending an additional $1600 for 32GB, which takes a whole 10 minutes to install, should be kicked out.
Yes but of course no one wants a clunky-ass 2kg ThinkPad with a 1080p screen. They want a Yoga or Surface Pro. I would like to see you install additional anything in one of those!
An E15 in my country costs $1200 with 8GB soldered-on RAM. Not sure if it has a second memory slot, although I would assume so. But the screen is crap and they weigh twice as much.
Also - who is buying enterprise equipment from Amazon?
They may want whatever, they’ll get what the IT dept gives them based on requirements… 👀
Anyway, an E15 is 1.8Kg, while a Yoga Pro is over 2Kg. The screen is not the best, but perfectly fine for anything other than photo/video work. It does have a SODIMM slot in addition to the soldered RAM, a secondary M.2 2280 slot, and the main NVMe is also an M.2 2242 (right now, the 8GB one goes up to 40GB RAM + 2TB + 16TB NVMe). Only thing it’s missing, is a WWAN slot.
Honestly, the Yoga have better screens, some are smaller and lighter, some have a touchscreen or pen support, or an SD reader… but all similar raw performance, and less upgradeability. The Surface Pro, I’ve heard horror tales about, both from a lack of upgradeability, and difficulty to repair.
who is buying enterprise equipment from Amazon?
Someone who wants it at half price, and yet with full warranty 😉
I’m still running 16GB. I built my PC in 2015 and it’s been my gaming/work/dev machine ever since. Have only upgraded GPU and storage.
It is definitely showing its age, but I don’t need to worry about the Windows requirements. My CPU isn’t supported for Windows 11 so I’m sticking with what I’ve got until Windows 10 hits EoL. Then I’ll probably buy a 64GB AMD system and switch to Mint at that point.
If Microsoft wants more RAM just to do AI shit on my computer, I’d rather have even less just to make sure they cant.
Be careful with what you wish for… if they can’t do it on your computer, then they’ll send your data to the cloud to do it there.
RAM is cheap, and even if you’re just doing absolute basic shit your current PC will work better with 16GB of RAM (also looking at you here, Apple). If it’s not a phone you’re buying don’t get anything with less than 16GB.
It is not just RAM. They also require special hardware/chip to run ANN
I’d like a phone with 16GB of RAM… using a 3GB one right now, and between a Lemmy app, a browser, and maybe some other app, it keeps running out of RAM and closing the keyboard app, which is a real nuisance.
On a phone the additional power draw of larger modules can be an issue - plus phones are designed to freeze background apps to conserve memory, so you can get away with less.
I currently have 6GB in my phone, which mostly is fine. In a few situations I’d have preferred having 8, though. 4 or less hasn’t made sense for a few years now.
Not sure how much of a difference would that make to power draw. There are already some phones with 12GB of RAM, and most of the power still goes to lighting up the screen.
My main gripe is that they all come paired with some fancy cameras which drive up the costs. I’d rather have a basic camera and even a lower resolution screen, with a ton of RAM, than the other way around.
I guess it depends on how you are using your phone. If you’re mostly using it between charges (possibly replacing other devices) it indeed doesn’t matter. If you care about standby time, or use it as music player or similar tasks more than active use it does matter.
RAM can also enter a low power mode:
A 64GB laptop configured with two 32GB DDR4 modules consumes less than 4.6 watts (W) in active mode and less than 1.4W when idle
DDR5 uses about 20% less power, so for 16GB you’re looking at less than 0.3W… likey way less, since a Samsung S24 Ultra with 12GB of RAM claims up to 95 hours “while listening to music”. That’s on a 5000mAh battery, or 18Wh, meaning less than 0.2W for “CPU + 12GB RAM + Bluetooth + storage”.
I do have 16GB RAM, but that’s not because I wanted to run just the OS and without a game.
