# How Much RAM for a Linux Desktop?

## MrApples

OK so im looking at getting some new hardware and i have already decided on the processor (2600+ Mobile) and the motherboard (Shuttle AN35N-Ultra), but what im not sure about it how much memory i should get, 512mb or 1gig

this computer would be a desktop and i run my share of servers, so what would everyone suggest, it will be running dual channel if that weighs on your suggestions

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## subrahmanyan

You didn't say what desktop you're going to use. But if money is not a problem for you, take 1GB, otherwise 512MB. It is the minimum for a desktop like KDE. I have 256MB in two machines (KDE on both of them) and it swaps all the time   :Crying or Very sad: 

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## miseiler

 *MrApples wrote:*   

> OK so im looking at getting some new hardware and i have already decided on the processor (2600+ Mobile) and the motherboard (Shuttle AN35N-Ultra), but what im not sure about it how much memory i should get, 512mb or 1gig
> 
> this computer would be a desktop and i run my share of servers, so what would everyone suggest, it will be running dual channel if that weighs on your suggestions

 

I gotta say I wish I'd gone with 1 GB for MY memory, even with 512 I'm a huge fan of wasting memory space with lots of little niceties (preloaded apps, super karamba modules, gdesklets, xmms, gaim, konqueror with a hundred tabs open, etc).  This can pose a problem if I then go to run a couple compilation threads in the background.

Obviously that might be a little extreme, depending on how you use your desktop...but under these circumstances I often wish I had twice the RAM.  YMMV.

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## Archangel1

I've got two machines, with 512 and 640, and they both get on okay in KDE.

With RAM being fairly cheap now I'd say it's worth going for the GB unless money's a problem. It'll be nice in a couple of years time when programs will be more demanding.

Depends what you're going to do with it though - you'll definately appreciate the RAM if you're gaming, or running a bunch of memory hungry apps. If you're only planning on light desktop use 512 would be okay - you can probably upgrade it down the line if you want anyway.

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## John5788

512 is nothing now, go with 1gb  :Smile: 

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## Suicidal

I pretty much agree with the rest 512 or better for a quick desktop.

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## monkeyhead

i have 512 and it keeps up most of the time, but there are times I wish I had more, like when I'm running vmware, got several x servers running and trying to compile the latest and greatest.

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## blue.sca

i have 768MB, thats pretty ok for all my needs. but if youre going for 1GB than be carefull, if you dont have the 1G_lowmem kernel patch, you have to enable high memory support in your kernel to use all your memory but that can make your system smaller (larger adress table i believe)

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## DaMouse

I ran one at 200MHz with 96MB of RAM and GNOME so there  :Razz: 

-DaMouse

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## Muso

512mb is fine ......... 768mb if you don't mind the cash ..... and 1gb if you never want to think about ram for the next 2 years

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## Archangel1

 *DaMouse wrote:*   

> I ran one at 200MHz with 96MB of RAM and GNOME so there 
> 
> -DaMouse

 

You're brave.... I've got one with 32MB to try sometime. Unfortunately it has Grub issues, so I can't get as far as worrying about WM's  :Sad: 

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## sabaisabai

I used to run KDE with full eye-candy turned on with 256MB on my 2.8G laptop, and it ran very well.  The only noticable difference that increasing to 640MB made was faster re-opening of apps.  

My usage is mainly for development (several DB/Internet servers running, and compiling/emerging) and Internet use, with not much use of multimedia besides GIMP.

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## rush_ad

working fine with 384mb here.

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## seppe

I have 3 computers,

My new laptop has 1Gb, and it's great! Most of the time, it's filled for 30% and things never get swapped.

My older desktop has 512Mb, and Gnome is a bit slow. But that could be due to the 800Mhz CPU. Sometimes, things get swapped.

My very old desktop has 64Mb, and Fluxbox and XFCE4 works great!  It's 133Mhz machine  :Smile: . I have no idea about swapping here, because I barely use this machine (and certainly not X, more console apps)

So I guess it depends on what you're going to do with your machine. But I suggest you to take 1Gb, otherwise you'll have to upgrade within a year or so.

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## dyqik

I'm using Konqueror in KDE 3.3 to write this with Knode open, Kopete logged into MSN, my PhD thesis (including figures) open in lyx, Noatun playing mp3s and several Konsoles doing their thing.  I'm also emerging openoffice.  My memory usage is 176 MB of 512 MB, with 256MB disk cache (that'll shrink when I get short on RAM) and nothing in the swap.  Also running are iptables, dhcp and ssh servers.  So 512 MB is plenty for a desktop.

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## RexM

I'm running an AMD Duron 900 with 384MB of PC100 RAM.  It seems to be pretty fast, but then again, I don't really have anything to compare it to.  I'm hoping to get an AMD Athlon 64 3500+ and 1GB of RAM soon, so that should help me out a tad.

I run Openbox3, Xorg 6.8, gaim, beepmp, firefox, xchat, enemy-territory, and it all runs fine.  When I first boot up I use about 50MB of memory and 0 Swap, after a game of ET it's up to about 170MB of memory and about 30MB of Swap.

I don't really understand why my system touches swap when there's still memory to use, but oh well, I didn't design the Linux kernel  :Wink: 

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## luisfeser

I'm running with 512Mb and sometimes i see more than 300 Mb in use, but it's rare, and never i seen 512 used. My desktop is Xfce4, or fbpanel  :Wink:  (but i use konqueror and k3b)

i'm thinking to buy 2x256 (400mhz) because of the nforce2 and dual-chanel. But 1Gb is so expensive and i'm sure that I don't need it...

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## DaMouse

 *Archangel1 wrote:*   

>  *DaMouse wrote:*   I ran one at 200MHz with 96MB of RAM and GNOME so there 
> 
> -DaMouse 
> 
> You're brave.... I've got one with 32MB to try sometime. Unfortunately it has Grub issues, so I can't get as far as worrying about WM's 

 

I had grub issues to.. ran lilo  :Smile:  Grub requires the MTRR which older x86 processors lack

-DaMouse

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## To

You can't ever say that you have enught ram. Go for 1G  :Rolling Eyes: 

Tó

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## Naib

Well if you just want a desktop my GNOME uses 100meg of RAM just after booting into it.

However, as I start to run things it obviously goes up.

generally 1Gig is good

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## DizL

Hi,

I'm using KDE 3.3.0 and programs like kmail, knode, xmms, mozilla (normal work)

and 512 MB is really enough for it :]

DizL

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## dizzogg

 *MrApples wrote:*   

> OK so im looking at getting some new hardware and i have already decided on the processor (2600+ Mobile) and the motherboard (Shuttle AN35N-Ultra), but what im not sure about it how much memory i should get, 512mb or 1gig
> 
> this computer would be a desktop and i run my share of servers, so what would everyone suggest, it will be running dual channel if that weighs on your suggestions

 

dude, if this is a desktop and not a laptop, why get a mobile processor?  Also, I agree, get as much RAM as you can afford...

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## luisfeser

 *dizzogg wrote:*   

>  *MrApples wrote:*   OK so im looking at getting some new hardware and i have already decided on the processor (2600+ Mobile) and the motherboard (Shuttle AN35N-Ultra), but what im not sure about it how much memory i should get, 512mb or 1gig
> 
> this computer would be a desktop and i run my share of servers, so what would everyone suggest, it will be running dual channel if that weighs on your suggestions 
> 
> dude, if this is a desktop and not a laptop, why get a mobile processor?  Also, I agree, get as much RAM as you can afford...

 

Because of the overclock  :Wink:  (i think)

I have a 2500+ mobile overclocked as a 3200+ (or a little more). And it is less hot than the no mobile processors because it need less voltage.

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## MrApples

 *dizzogg wrote:*   

>  *MrApples wrote:*   OK so im looking at getting some new hardware and i have already decided on the processor (2600+ Mobile) and the motherboard (Shuttle AN35N-Ultra), but what im not sure about it how much memory i should get, 512mb or 1gig
> 
> this computer would be a desktop and i run my share of servers, so what would everyone suggest, it will be running dual channel if that weighs on your suggestions 
> 
> dude, if this is a desktop and not a laptop, why get a mobile processor?  Also, I agree, get as much RAM as you can afford...

 

im going to overclock it to around 2500mhz which will provide a big performance increase

anyway, to clear some things up:

i generally use fluxbox or fvwm, but i like my eye candy, i also run a lot of gnome apps

also, its either 512 or 1024 because im run it dual channel

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## codergeek42

Using Openbox, Firefox, Thunderbird, OO.o-Ximian,  Gaim, etc. with 256 MB RAM. It runs good using zSNES and Quake III, Tux Racer, etc, also (I have 512 MB swap, usually using 10 MB or so of it, as reported by free, usually alot more while I'm gaming.) DUDE I need new RAM lol...

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## oggialli

 *dizzogg wrote:*   

>  *MrApples wrote:*   OK so im looking at getting some new hardware and i have already decided on the processor (2600+ Mobile) and the motherboard (Shuttle AN35N-Ultra), but what im not sure about it how much memory i should get, 512mb or 1gig
> 
> this computer would be a desktop and i run my share of servers, so what would everyone suggest, it will be running dual channel if that weighs on your suggestions 
> 
> dude, if this is a desktop and not a laptop, why get a mobile processor?  Also, I agree, get as much RAM as you can afford...

 

Because, the mobile processors really are just excellent desktop processors that are able to be stable with less voltage at their default clockrate (and therefore at any clockrate) so there is a LOT more space for oc'ing. Usually the Mobile 2400+ bartons etc clock to about 2600MHz or alike with a light H20 cooling while regular 2500+ go only to... 2400 or something and need more voltage -> more heat to dispose of.

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## runlevel0

I have 3 Linux boxes at home: The main box  (Duron 1.3, desktop SUSE 9.1) is a full-blown Linux system which I use to do from 3D rendering (Blender) to text editing  and some little programming (this box does also NATting for the others),   I have 768MB DDR 333 on this one. 

My wife's SUSE 9.0 box is a Pentium III 700 with an older  motherborad which has a 512MB  but only recognices ~300MB. 

And the last one is my brand new Stage1 optimized Amilo K 7600 Laptop, which 

uses 256MB right now, but I have already ordered an extra 512MB SODIMM.

Both, my wife's box and the laptop run quite smoothly, the  desktop because she only uses it for email and web surfing. 

On  the laptop using OpenOffice I can sometimes notices "jumps": The system freezes  for seconds and the cursor jumps back to the last place where it was. This was using SUSE 9.1... 

With my brand new Stage1 Gentoo 2004.2 install I have already noticed a real improvement in compilation speed compared to a not optimized kernel, no 'jumps' at all. so I would say  that you would prolly be all right with 256MB and state-of-the-art CPU and MB. 

But remember:

RAM is like sex and money, the more the better.

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## MrApples

so with my running fluxbox or fvwm, and a bunch of gnome apps, all on top of a nitro kernel with some servers,  would i need more than 512?

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## goulash

im jumping on the 1gb bandwagon  :Wink: 

also is the 2600+ a barton core? i thought it was the 2500+,2800+ and 3200+ were carton cores. my friend got a 2500+ mobile and it clocks to 2.4ghz very easily, even beats another mates 3.0ghz p4 with ht  :Very Happy: 

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## JallaMann

I would say 512mb should be enough. I'm running xorg and fluxbox on a laptop with an amd 1400+ and 384mb ram (16mb used by gfx). Works fine. But if you're going with a dual channel setup, I would say getting 2x256 mb is a waste of ram slots. And afaik dual channel doesnt give that much of an improvement... correct me if I'm wrong   :Confused: 

I would give you some numbers from my main computer running fluxbox with 512mb too, but right now I seem to have a memory leak or something   :Sad: 

btw, Im new so go easy on me   :Wink: 

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## kavau

I have KDE + Firefox + OpenOffice running on 512MB and don't feel like I'm scarce on memory. Just for kicks, I fired up Gimp in addition to the above programs and applied some filters to my 3-4 meg digicam files, but I still don't notice any swapping action.

So I'd say, unless you plan to do something extremely memory intensive such as video editing or plasma physics simulations, 512MB is the right amount these days.

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## MrApples

 *goulash wrote:*   

> im jumping on the 1gb bandwagon 
> 
> also is the 2600+ a barton core? i thought it was the 2500+,2800+ and 3200+ were carton cores. my friend got a 2500+ mobile and it clocks to 2.4ghz very easily, even beats another mates 3.0ghz p4 with ht 

 

the standard 2600+ comes in both tbred and barton cores, the mobile which im getting is a barton core

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## 5a\/ag3

I know I have a Gig of RAM and will be upping it to 2 GB(4 x 512 PC3200) of Ram pretty quick just to keep things running real smooth  :Wink: 

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## MrApples

from all this im thinking that i will have no need for anything over 512, even with all of the things i will be running

does anyone disagree with this?

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## kavau

 *MrApples wrote:*   

> from all this im thinking that i will have no need for anything over 512, even with all of the things i will be running
> 
> does anyone disagree with this?

 

I totally agree. FYI, I recently checked my memory usage in more detail. The numbers are very rough (rounded to 5MB):

X.org + KDE core system, right after boot: 85MB

Firefox: 20MB

OpenOffice: 25MB

Gimp (with pics loaded): 50MB

I wouldn't know what to do to fill up my 512MB (except, maybe, run Windows XP in a Virtual Machine, but why would I want to do that  :Wink:  )

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