After years of saying that Ubuntu needs much less RAM than Windows, Canonical is admitting that 4GB is not enough.
How-to-Geek notes that Ubuntu 26.04 LTS has raised the baseline memory to 6GB, along with a 2GHz dual-core processor and 25GB of storage.
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS set the floor at 1GB when it landed in 2014; then Ubuntu 18.04 LTS raised that to 4GB and got away with it for years.
The new 6GB minimum sits in a funny spot next to Windows 11, which claims it only needs 4GB, even if real machines tell a less flattering story.
OMG Ubuntu reckons the jump is “not because Ubuntu requires 2GB more memory than it did, but more the way we compute does… It’s more of an honesty bump. Components that make up the distro — the GNOME desktop and extensions, modern web browsers (and the sites we load in them) and the kinds of apps we use (and keep running) whilst multitasking are more demanding… The Resolute Raccoon’s memory requirements better reflect real-world multitasking.”
Ubuntu 26.04 LTS will still install with less than 6GB of RAM, but it will not budge on less than 25GB of disk space, and you do not get sympathy for the stutters.
One tester put Ubuntu 26.04 Beta on a 2GB laptop and called it “slow to the point of frustration in use, but otherwise functional.”
If you are stuck on 4GB because the memory is soldered and you would rather avoid chucking the machine, lighter Ubuntu flavours like Lubuntu keep the bar lower.
There is the netboot route too, where you install a base system and build something leaner by hand, which is great if you fancy spending your weekend in a terminal.
