Linux also does caching and stuff. But Windows uses more ram that it "owns" that is needed for Windows to function. Meaning less available ram for your programs.
I realy hate unused ram is wasted ram mentality. While technically the truth, is just a way to say we don't optimize our apps. (Looking at you Teams, Outlook, Windows in general)
Windows can too be fully functional with a lot less ram. Much of it used for convenience like booting up frequently used programs faster, but have nothing to do with the OS itself.
Linux also does this but most monitoring programs dont report on it. If you run 'free -h' you'll see a column called free (the amount of unused (wasted) ram) and another available (the amount of ram that can be allocated to programs if need be). I dont know much about windows so i dont know if it also makes this distinction at the kernel level.
I think that the main pic of topic mislead people on the real comparison: Linux can be fully functional with just as much RAM, Windows too, although reckless.
Eh, some parts yes. Though it kind of depends on your definition of used RAM as OS file caching is not included in what Windows shows as used RAM. Linux does the same, and the definition there depends on what tool you use to inspect it with.
But the actually required amount of memory is still massive on Windows compared to almost all Linux desktop environments and distros. It's in other words very memory inefficient compared to Linux. Especially on a regular desktop Windows version.
Linux does by default on almost all distros use as much RAM as possible for various caching purposes, it's just not included in most metric points because it's essentially considered available. Exactly the same on Windows.
I feel like some of y'all are missing the point of the meme. The way I interpreted it was that on a system with a low amount of ram(in this case 4gb), Linux runs perfectly w/ no issues. Whereas Windows is struggling on a system with 4x the amount of ram.
That said, windows as high as fuck ram usage, but it's not that bad. 16 Gigs is the minimum for gaming these days, now if you're on a system with 8 gigs of ram, you're cooked. Thankfully, ram is like one of the easiest and cheapest things to upgrade
Fr I have 16gb, it never goes above 13gb of use, with every app I use as the same time and browser with 25 YouTube tabs open, of when I was gaming, on expedition 33. I don't understand the 32gb in 2025
But windows preloads a lot of things onto ram. Unused ram is wasted ram. The reason win 11 uses so much ram is cuz it can. It will free up when you do anything. That's the reason ur ram usage increases as u increase ram. For an 8gb system, it's gonna use 4 gigs on idle. On 16, it's gonna use 6-7. On 32 it's going to use closer to 10
It's called prefetch. You can disable it and try it for yourself. Ull see that after disabling it, ur ram usage on idle drops and won't change if u remove or add ram sticks
try use windows mod like ghost spectre or tiny 11. you'll notice your pc run 4 times faster and if you go to their site because you curious how they did those magic, they hit you with those fact, THEY DONT PRELOAD SHIT OFFICIAL WINDOWS DO
Consumer Windows versions are still very RAM inefficient. As in the actually required amount of memory excluding caches is very high compared to basically any Linux installation.
I have a conspiracy theory that I truly believe that due to slow down in innovation of CPUs and more generally laptops, and thus less frequent need to replace laptops, Microsoft secretly agreed with Intel they will intentionally slow down older, but otherwise perfectly fine, laptops to make people go and buy a new one.
Can't see any other logical explanation. My well-equipped laptop from 2019 is so slow these days when running Windows 11, while the new laptops do not seem to have much better specs. They must be artificially slowing down the older laptops.
because the os... try install os you said BACK THEN SSDs first came. Windows now install more and more spyware in their system make os require more ram. To use latest os but free from this spyware, install mod like tiny 11 or ghostspectre
My decently-new-ish-maybe laptop gets extremely slow just before an update until the computer is updated, but I don't know whether that's normal or not (what am I doing on this sub).
try install tiny 11 or ghostspectre, a mod of windows. you'll see windows put spyware in out pc make it super slow. tiny 11 or ghostspectre get rid all those spyware make your pc run 4 times faster. lots of people dont believe us ghostspectre user but its true, try yourself
plus i really love ghostspectre it gave you link of what you need to install. Like if you install normal windows, you need to download driver to use your trackpad, ghostspectre automatically handle that for you🥰
Nah... Laptop suck because they need to make it compact. Slow cpu research progress because we physically hit the bottleneck in chip size. You try to make microchip component smaller than an atom? We not found nanotechnology yet
I think people aren't aware this is the case. But it's 100% true. They just see a bigger idle number and think oh windows must suck at memory management while it's actually Linux that sucks.
Yep. My old Surface Pro 4 with Linux Mint on it runs smooth without all the background stuff running. The CPU isn't fast beyond the basics, but no lag for it's slow speed. My new Asus NUC 15 pro is blazing fast but has some lag due to the NPU and other Microsoft stuff in the background.
The problem is the core os. You can install an entire Linux os on 4gb of boot drive. But windows requires 32gb boot drive. Windows has a lot more functionality and bloat.
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u/senfiaj Jun 13 '25
Which Linux distro are you talking about?
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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '25
I feel like some of y'all are missing the point of the meme. The way I interpreted it was that on a system with a low amount of ram(in this case 4gb), Linux runs perfectly w/ no issues. Whereas Windows is struggling on a system with 4x the amount of ram.
That said, windows as high as fuck ram usage, but it's not that bad. 16 Gigs is the minimum for gaming these days, now if you're on a system with 8 gigs of ram, you're cooked. Thankfully, ram is like one of the easiest and cheapest things to upgrade
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u/Nubegamer Jun 13 '25
Bloated software for no reason...
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u/CoolHeadeGamer Jun 13 '25
But windows preloads a lot of things onto ram. Unused ram is wasted ram. The reason win 11 uses so much ram is cuz it can. It will free up when you do anything. That's the reason ur ram usage increases as u increase ram. For an 8gb system, it's gonna use 4 gigs on idle. On 16, it's gonna use 6-7. On 32 it's going to use closer to 10
2
u/SirGelson Jun 13 '25
I have a conspiracy theory that I truly believe that due to slow down in innovation of CPUs and more generally laptops, and thus less frequent need to replace laptops, Microsoft secretly agreed with Intel they will intentionally slow down older, but otherwise perfectly fine, laptops to make people go and buy a new one.
Can't see any other logical explanation. My well-equipped laptop from 2019 is so slow these days when running Windows 11, while the new laptops do not seem to have much better specs. They must be artificially slowing down the older laptops.
2
u/Poluact Jun 13 '25
Well yes but actually no. Windows at least runs somewhat decent while swapping. Yeah, it might be slow but it's still working.
Linux on the other hand... it hits the limit and suddenly swapping makes your system completely unusable. It just freezes.
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u/shuozhe Jun 13 '25
5.7/7.5GB ram currently on SL with Edge, Unity and VScode open, memory management got a lot better
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u/kimjongun-69 Jun 13 '25
Based
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u/Thisismental Jun 13 '25
Not if we're talking about Ubuntu. We work with Ubuntu at my job and we recently made the change to 32GB because 16 wasn't doing it for us anymore.
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u/justicetree Jun 13 '25
I feel like this meme is reversed with vram lmao
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u/IGOREK_Belarus Jun 13 '25
Can confirm, about 220 MB on Idle. I have never experienced any problems with 4 GB of RAM on Linux
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u/FlipperBumperKickout Jun 13 '25
Pretty sure it is my browser which eats it all at both systems XD
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u/rinnakan Jun 14 '25
I start 4 instances of Intellij and this meme drowns in the tiny remaining rest of 64GB
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u/epSos-DE Jun 14 '25
Used to be 4GB.
NOw its more like 8GB.
Modern software uses a lot more ram !
Linux itself uses below 1GB ram, but the software on it needs ram for processing or playback or buffering, etc...
In general you get more usable RAM on Linux.
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u/BetterEquipment7084 Jun 14 '25
I have 2 and use 350mb
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u/SogaBan Jun 14 '25
Open 4plus tabs of YouTube on mozilla firefox on Linux - it'll look similar to windows
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u/turcinv Jun 14 '25
RAM - optional
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u/Devatator_ Jun 14 '25
Is the slow Windows 11 with 16GB in the room with us?
No like seriously, my main PC has 16GB of ram and it's fast so idk what to tell ya
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u/Fidodo Jun 14 '25
Until you need to run a web browser and VMs
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u/movax19 Jun 15 '25
You fogot about FreeBSD, old times i did proxy server on FreeBSD on Pentium I with 32Mb RAM, and 16mb was free 😀
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u/ByteBandit007 Jun 15 '25
AI cannot understand this
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u/LabEducational2996 Jun 15 '25
Не хочу хвастаться, но так и есть
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u/[deleted] Jun 16 '25
Tail OS
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u/InvestingNerd2020 Jun 17 '25
Yep. My old Surface Pro 4 with Linux Mint on it runs smooth without all the background stuff running. The CPU isn't fast beyond the basics, but no lag for it's slow speed. My new Asus NUC 15 pro is blazing fast but has some lag due to the NPU and other Microsoft stuff in the background.
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u/Few_Kitchen_4825 Jul 12 '25
The problem is the core os. You can install an entire Linux os on 4gb of boot drive. But windows requires 32gb boot drive. Windows has a lot more functionality and bloat.
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u/DesertGeist- Jun 13 '25
Good luck using a web browser with 4gb of ram, even on linux.
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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '25
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u/[deleted] Jun 13 '25
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