For a typical desktop Linux 12 GiB should be fine.
It depends on what you do with the system, of course. If you regularly compile big and template-heavy C++ codebases, work with Blender,… then 12 GiB won’t be enough.
(What really surprised me was how much can still be done with just 4 GiB of memory. My laptop is currently limited to 4 GiB, and with some effort to set up a minimalist system it’s working surprisingly well. I barely ever hit the memory limit - actually only when compiling big template-heavy C++ codebases 😉.)
xthexder@l.sw0.com 3 weeks ago
This is just nuts to me… My first laptop came with 512MB of RAM and only supported up to 2GB. They were still selling Macbook Pros with only 8GB of memory a year or two ago.
12GB SHOULD be enough to do everything, especially if it’s running a linux OS. But I guess we can’t have nice things because of memory hogs like Chrome.
monk@lemmy.unboiled.info 2 weeks ago
your first laptop also had, like, a megapixel screen, while the Steam Deck over here (checks notes) (checks notes again)
xthexder@l.sw0.com 2 weeks ago
Haha, I didn’t even realize but the resolution is actually identical. My first laptop was a min-spec Macbook gen 1 (first Intel CPU model). It’s the same 1280x800. The modern LCD (or OLED) on a Steam Deck looks way better obviously, and they’re different DPI, but the performance hit is identical.