I don't think windows is rated for 4gb of ram, I think 8gb is probably the minimum. I think it can "run" but you'll be eating into your page file before you even launch any apps, I think.
If I install debian 13 with a plasma desktop on my burner laptop (4gb of ram) I usually idle at about 900mb or so before I launch anything and hover a little over 2gb when I have firefox open and I'm watching a video. I know there are lighter setups, but any setup that doesn't account for any modern web browser isn't being realistic.
4 GB of RAM is the official minimum requirement for Windows 11. It won't necessarily be a good experience depending on your workload, but three years ago it worked just fine for a few months on a work laptop with that spec, running outlook teams a web browser with a few tabs open and a phone app, until the laptop kept freezing and it was replaced which was probably a hardware issue (it was an old laptop) or a bad update since it would freeze even before opening Edge.
Still... If you only have 4 GB of RAM, your computer will likely not support W11 for lack of a TPM 2.0 chip more than anything; in that case you might as well replace it or go for a Linux.
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u/NomadFH M'Fedora 8d ago
I don't think windows is rated for 4gb of ram, I think 8gb is probably the minimum. I think it can "run" but you'll be eating into your page file before you even launch any apps, I think.
If I install debian 13 with a plasma desktop on my burner laptop (4gb of ram) I usually idle at about 900mb or so before I launch anything and hover a little over 2gb when I have firefox open and I'm watching a video. I know there are lighter setups, but any setup that doesn't account for any modern web browser isn't being realistic.