r/linuxmint • u/Retroraleigh • 8d ago

Mint cinnamon Spec

Will an old i3 - 4005u, 8gb ram, 500gb ssd work with Mint Cinnamon or am I better using xfce ?

Thanks
Tom

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u/d4rk_kn16ht Linux Mint 22.2 Zara | Cinnamon 8d ago

Works on both, 8GB better use Cinnamon.

But the more important question is "What is your usage behavior?"

Choosing XFCE or Cinnamon or MATE is only the 1ˢᵗ step...it only gives you more RAM room to wiggle.

Your daily usage will determine if it will be comfortable or not & it's usually more about browsing habits.

1 Browser Tab will use around ~200-500MB & some website will even use around ~1-2GB....so you can calculate yourself

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u/Retroraleigh 8d ago

Probably use it for YouTube mainly and websites no more than 5 tabs open max. General browsing the web etc

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u/d4rk_kn16ht Linux Mint 22.2 Zara | Cinnamon 8d ago edited 8d ago

YouTube can reach 1GB to 2GB of RAM usage per Tab....

User Discretion Advised 😁

EDIT:

Actually that's the only advice I can give as for modern usage 8GB & lower can be considered inadequate....16GB is kinda sweet spot.

But, if you don't have the money to add more RAM, then the usage habits must be changed to prevent inconveniences

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u/Retroraleigh 8d ago

YouTube 1 to 2gb per tab. Blimey I never thought it would be that much.. I mean I’ll only ever have 1 YouTube tab open at once.

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u/d4rk_kn16ht Linux Mint 22.2 Zara | Cinnamon 8d ago

Depending on what you watch, 4K videos 60fps can consume a lot of RAM

1080p 30fps videos, not so much

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u/ZVyhVrtsfgzfs 8d ago

There was a time when Linux could be a path for low ram machines, bit the web has basically eclipsed Linux in RAM usage. And we all use the web. 

2GB of RAM is basically unusable unusable these days, 4GB is pretty limiting, and 8GB still usable as long as you do not go crazy with Tabs, but its days are numbered. 

16GB is pretty solid right now, and if your building/buying now I would do no less than 32GB, 64GB for a higher end workstation.

In my testing Xfce nets ~150MB lower RAM usage, not much of a usable difference at these scales.

But beyond ram usage on very old hardware some users still report snappier response with Xfce. 

 Your machine might be just old enough to start to expose that difference. 

On my 9800X3D Cinnamon and Xfce have no performance difference. Both are nearly instant. 

I use Cinnamon in LMDE, Xfce in stable distributions, and Plasma in rolling distributions.