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I just installed Ubuntu and finished installing updates. It is using 1 - 1.2GB of ram without any program running. With Firefox with just one tab open it is using 1.4GB.

Here is the screenshot from System Monitor:

screenshot

PC Specs:

CPU : Pentium Dual-Core CPU E5500 @ 2.80GHz

Graphics : Intel Express Chipset G41

RAM : 2GB DDR3

OS : Ubuntu 16.04 LTS 64-Bit (Dual boot with Windows 7 64-Bit)

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    Any browser nowadays uses as much RAM as it can. On top of that the graphics are old and underpowered which results in higher CPU/RAM usage
    – user692175
    Oct 1, 2017 at 9:37
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    First of all 2GiB is not a lot by modern standards. Second 1.4GiB in use with a web browser open is not unreasonable. You're not using swap either, so I'd say this is just fine, and I wouldn't worry about it. You should worry if you start to write out large amounts to swap.
    – vidarlo
    Oct 1, 2017 at 9:37
  • Your RAM usage is not extraordinarily high. See askubuntu.com/q/206407/367990 for minimal/recommended hardware resources for different flavours of Ubuntu. A modern installation with Unity desktop has a minimal requirement of 1GB RAM, 2GB recommended. If that is too much, try e.g. Lubuntu or Xubuntu, which use a lighter desktop environment (LXDE or XFCE) that needs less RAM.
    – Byte Commander
    Oct 1, 2017 at 11:14
  • Or only remove unity desktop and install XFCE desktop on your UBNTU
    – EsmaeelE
    Oct 1, 2017 at 12:13
  • Use top command in terminal to see RAM eaters programs.
    – EsmaeelE
    Oct 1, 2017 at 12:15

1 Answer 1

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This isn't high RAM usage by vanilla Ubuntu 16.04 standards in my experience. I run Ubuntu 16.04 on a desktop computer that has plenty of RAM and I'd say this usage is par for the course.

However, my laptop has very similar specs to what you've listed (2GB RAM, etc.), so for my laptop I use Ubuntu MATE 16.04, which in my experience tends to use ~350MB less RAM from startup than vanilla Ubuntu.

For lower end hardware like this, I highly suggest going with either the Ubuntu MATE, Xubuntu, or Lubuntu flavors that have lighter desktop environments than Unity. Xubuntu and Lubuntu are even lighter than Ubuntu MATE, but I just really like the MATE DE and prefer it to XFCE (used by Xubunut) or LXDE (used by Lubuntu).

I must mention that MichaelBay is right -- no matter what flavor you go with, modern browsers are RAM hogs, so switching to MATE or Xubuntu won't really change that aspect of it, you just end up using less total RAM due to the lighter DE.

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