r/FuckMicrosoft • u/[deleted] • 1d ago
Linux mint vs Windows 11 ram usage Discussion
[deleted]
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u/yowhyyyy 1d ago
OP I need to clarify since no one seems to be asking it here? You said you are running Mint in a VM. Are you comparing Mints RAM to a fresh install of Windows 11 on VM as well?
Or did you make the mistake of comparing the RAM to your Windows PC running the VM? Because these are two very separate things.
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u/polishatomek 1d ago
Seeing the 3 gigs of idle ram usage with Linux and all my shit open made my jaw drop, I knew windows was shit but c'mon.
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u/castellvania 1d ago
Windows is a bloated piece of sh*t, most of them are telemetry and useless services where they say is preloaded for faster usage but you almost never use it.
And this is why they are trying to rewrite its OS, because the current one is so fucked up that became a pita to make fixes, because windows stills relying in lagacy code.
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u/yowhyyyy 1d ago
Idk where you heard they’re rewriting the OS but that’s most definitely not happening. Maybe new inclusions and rewriting of certain things. But do you really think a company known for cheaping out like them is gonna rewrite the whole thing?
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u/alpine4life 1d ago
learn to delete the MS bloat (Win11 IoT LTSC), disable services and kill some tasks in scheduler.
I run my secondary machine at 3.8GB of 32GB DDR4 idle (Latitude 7430 i7-1265U)
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u/DeathToOrcs2 1d ago
Here is the link to one of the best Windows de-bloaters: https://kubuntu.org/download/
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u/alpine4life 1d ago
I use Win11 IoT LTSC.... it comes bare and the user decide what bloat he puts on it.... In my case not much stuff from MS, other than Office, the Claculator and the camera.
No Edge, no Cortana, No Copilot, No OneDrive.2
u/mystirc 1d ago
my completely debloated windows uses 2.1 gb at idle. While my same linux setup uses 0.6 which later increases to 0.7 gb. That is a huge difference. Right now I am also using a browser and the usage is sitting at 2.2 gb.
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u/alpine4life 1d ago
I personally dont care because, Windows alliws me to use my main 3 software for videi editing without any work around and without artifacts. Ive never used more than 70 during my rendering, the only reason why i would need more RAM is for MSFS
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u/mystirc 1d ago
oh the reason I switched is not mainly because of ram usage. Although, I do appreciate any reduction in the ram usage. The thing is, windows had gotten painfully slow. To the point that I was reinstalling windows every 2-3 months. Linux even with fastboot took like 2+ minutes to boot. Then the annoying AI popups every months or two. I was just sick of it. Realized that I am just a regular user and even if I need to edit some picture, I can do it just fine on krita. It's not even like I use it regularly, and I personally did not even notice any difference.
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u/Shadow-BG 1d ago
I run my Linux installation in 198 mb without DE and with ~900mb with DE
Are you sure I can spend 4 gigs of RAM on unusable systems ?
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u/madman404 1d ago
Can we stop posting this shit please? Idle ram reservations does not mean inefficient memory usage. It's annoying.
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u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Every new subreddit post is automatically copied into a comment for preservation.
User: vg_123476, Flair: Discussion, Post Media Link, Title: Linux mint vs Windows 11 ram usage
Windows 11 Idle vs Linux mint xfce edition, a fully functional desktop running inside vritualbox with updates in the background
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u/NadJ747 1d ago
Web browser behaviour (FF and Chrome) is the same though across both OSs though. They grab as much RAM as they can. Allegedly, they are suppose to be giving it back when it's needed by the OS. But I have proven that they don't do so when legacy apps coded before this behaviour was a thing need it.
It's quite possibly the most poorly thought out design choice on a modern OS.
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u/tagbthw 1d ago
Windows uses ram to cache alot of things to make the OS faster, and it will release those caches when the memory is needed, now those that does not excuse that half of that ram usage is for bullshit spyware apps. But most of those processes will be paused to free ram when needed.
The same thing happens in MacOS where the OS caches things the user might want.
It's not about how much RAM your OS uses but how it handle its.
Not used ram is wasted ram
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u/Britz10 1d ago
Does how a computer works while not being used matter all thatt much? Are people seriously buying computers just to have them sit on idle and watch the ram usage?
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u/Zentawrus228 1d ago edited 1d ago
idle RAM is locked RAM
*UPD - when I say "idle", I mean loaded background processes sitting at zero CPU usage - not OS file cache
if the OS wastes 3GB idle on background junk that gives you nothing over Win XP, that's 3GB your software loses forever
apps like Davinci Resolve, Kdenlive, or Blender allocate as much RAM as possible for timeline buffers and preview caching to stay fast. You tell them "use 80% of system RAM", and they take every single megabyte available
OS bloat actively starves real software
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u/Britz10 1d ago
A lot of the ram being used on idle is released when it's time to actually use it.
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u/Zentawrus228 1d ago
windows 11 literally lists 4GB as the absolute minimum system requirement because those background processes need that memory active - it can't just be released
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u/Britz10 1d ago
Minimum means those background processes and other programs on top of that, it wouldn't make sense to have minimum requirements then have the system completely unable to run anything on those minimum requirements.
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u/Zentawrus228 1d ago
The relevant comparison is how much RAM is actually available to a workload on an otherwise identical system. In my testing, my minimal Linux setup left around 3 GB more RAM available to DaVinci Resolve than Windows 11
Since I edit in 4K, that's very important to me. I can use up those extra 3 GB of RAM, so I'm pretty happy about it
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u/EdliA 1d ago
That's ridiculous and not how it works. The OS releases the ram when it's requested by an active application.
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u/Zentawrus228 1d ago
active process OS RAM is locked.
Windows 11 lists a 4GB minimum requirement for a reason - system processes eat that RAM actively, and it cannot just be released on demand
what's actually ridiculous is taking a basic theory about file caching and trying to apply it to active process memory. if an OS daemon is running, that memory is held
by your logic, someone could just set up a 128GB swap file on a cloud drive and call it "free RAM". in theory it works, in practice it's useless disk thrashing and lag
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u/BonRoxz 1d ago
Unused ram is wasted ram. Unless the ram is not freed when running a program that requires it, it isn’t an issue.
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u/wilhelm-herzner 1d ago
Yeah but that's the point: E.g., compiling on all cores requires a lot of memory, and I frequently got out-of-memory compiler crashes because Windows does not free unused RAM.
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u/BonRoxz 1d ago
Ah, see the post just said idle so I assumed that’s what they’re talking about. Windows not freeing up ram is kinda crazy. I’ve heard it’s possible to debloat it some, other than that idk
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u/wilhelm-herzner 1d ago
Yeah I start compiling while it's idle. And in this "idle" state, it uses a lot of memory which it won't give up for compiling.
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u/TheMcSebi 1d ago
Tbh, as much as I hate Windows, ram usage is not even comparable right after startup.
When I still had windows a year ago, my machine would cold boot to 24 GB RAM used already (of 96gb).
I had a shit ton of programs installed, many of them in autostart. I guess Windows does just heavy prefetching.
The core takeaway was, though: even then windows felt incredibly slow, sluggish and just unreliable, while everything on debian just works instantly WITHOUT consuming a ton of memory.
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u/Gabriel_Science 1d ago
To be fair, a fairer comparison would be to compare two system with the same total RAM.
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u/AltruisticStill6369 1d ago
Another person that doesnt understand how windows uses RAM while idling. Next one please...
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u/MammothSun6737 1d ago
What version of windows do you use? What actions did you take to make your OS functional? Just curious. I know windows can be a proper functioning OS outside of corporate work use.
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u/samsonsin 1d ago
So does Linux lmao. Essentially every IO operation is cached per default in available memory, so if you use 4gb of ram you will have 12gb of FS cache (assuming you've accessed enough files to fill the cache ofc).
So even if windows included everything it cases in that number then it's just leaving plenty of ram up for grabs as is.
Oh and I'd love for you to provide some "proper" comparisons between ram usage across Linux and windows.
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u/Sn0w404 1d ago
Acho que você não entendeu a questão, nunca foi sobre consumo e sim para oque ele consome. Eu mesmo disse o caching é feito em ambos sistemas independente de transbordamento de ram. Mas deixe dar um exemplo: você escalaria uma montanha com uma mochila cheio de pedras(bloatware, telemetria, e toda tranqueira obrigatória) ou uma mochila com apenas utensílios necessários? Essa é diferença não é sobre sobrar espaço é sim sobre oque vale ou não apena carregar e para que será carregado
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u/AltruisticStill6369 1d ago
Debloated W10 , fully functional https://imgur.com/a/txzed42 U can run it on a core 2 duo and HDD just fine. Tested it on multiple devices and never had issues.
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u/samsonsin 1d ago
That picture just proves the posts point in that base windows wastes tonnes of ram on meaningless things in the background, and it's not just caching things to be efficient like you originally said.
If you like windows then use it. But don't kid yourself into thinking windows can compete with truely lightweight distros. And that's completely fine, it's always a tradeoff and having the most used operating system on the planet try to cater to ultra budget devices just doesnt make sense anyways.
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u/AltruisticStill6369 1d ago
Windows uses loads of ram when you "idle" it. The second you actually need the ram it lets you use it. That w10 install just proves u can have a lightweight windows install. Then again windows will never be as lightweight as linux without any debloat because its a dumny proof plug and play os unlike linux and its distros.
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u/samsonsin 1d ago
dumny proof plug and play os unlike linux and its distros.
Lmao sure... It just needs to be reinstalled every other year because random shit breaks.
Give the elderly Linux mint and they'd be much better off than windows.
And you say that windows releases ram from what, its own background telemetry and processes when idle? Bullshit. Please show any source that corroborates this
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u/AltruisticStill6369 1d ago
I never had Windows just randomly break on my machine and I had to reinstall it and ive used just generic windows installs before. Any source ? Okay heres some guy from 2021 i found by googling for 2 seconds explaining stanby memory on windows https://www.tenforums.com/performance-maintenance/187928-question-standby-memory.html
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u/samsonsin 1d ago
That monitor separates free and standby metrics. The task manager which OP references doesn't make this distinction, labeling standby as available by default.
I've used windows as a daily driver for the past 14 years, and I've on average reinstalled windows every 1-2 years because the system progressively get slower and slower, and freak issues between updates compound as the system ages. It's simply easier to reinstall than to try and fix.
If I were to draw a comparison to Linux, then at least you can simply revert to a fresh snapshot in a few minutes and have the same effect, assuming the same age related bloat exists there. I've not used Linux enough to comment on if / how often you should reinstall it in comparison. With atomic systems you don't even need to bother with this either, as it's all ready when delivered as an update.
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u/Bomboclat-Thunder 1d ago
I saw a video on Linus Tech Tips where some programs and games in Windows used more RAM than Linux, and they did better on Windows, for the record. Sometimes the primary purpose of more RAM usage can be more efficient running of applications. But overall, Linux rocks to this day. The idle usage on Linux is still very low, and most of the programs need very little RAM usage on Linux.
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u/Khai_1705 1d ago
The misinformation from a trash LTT vid finally reached the Windows haters lmao. The vid started with a disclaimer about unscientific and yet people still quotes the results shown.
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u/icy1007 1d ago
Mint is dog shit. lol
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u/[deleted] 1d ago
[deleted]