Canonical bumped the minimum RAM requirement for Ubuntu 26.04 LTS to 6 GB. On paper, that puts it above Windows 11’s 4 GB minimum. But numbers without context are useless, and if you have ever tried to actually use a 4 GB Windows 11 laptop, you know that 4 GB is not a real floor. It is a marketing floor. The honest comparison is between 6 GB that runs Ubuntu well and 8 GB that Windows 11 needs to be usable. By that measure, the two are roughly equal, and the Ubuntu requirement is more honest about what the OS actually needs.
The larger story is that both Linux and Windows have been raising their minimums, and both have been telling partial truths about why. Ubuntu’s 6 GB floor is real, and the OS will be sluggish below it. Windows 11’s 4 GB floor is also real, but the OS is already sluggish at 4 GB with the recommended settings. The difference is that Canonical is putting the honest number in the spec sheet, and Microsoft is leaving the realistic number out of the spec sheet and into a footnote about “for best performance, use 8 GB or more.”
I have been running pre-release Ubuntu 26.04 on a six-year-old ThinkPad with 8 GB of RAM for two weeks, and the experience is not perfect. The Wayland session (a modern display server protocol that handles how windows are drawn on the screen, replacing the older X11 system) is smoother than the X11 session, but Firefox still uses more memory than it should. The installer is faster than Windows 11 by a wide margin. The boot is faster. The update story is cleaner. None of that requires 6 GB.
What the 6 GB requirement actually means
The 6 GB number comes from Canonical’s testing of the default Ubuntu desktop, which includes GNOME (the default Linux desktop environment on Ubuntu, the visual layer that draws the panels, the app launcher, and the file manager), Firefox, and a chat client. With just GNOME running, the OS uses about 1.2 GB of RAM at idle. With Firefox and a chat client open, the total is closer to 3 GB. That leaves 3 GB for user applications on a 6 GB system, which is enough for office work, web browsing, and a code editor. It is not enough for video editing, large compiles, or running multiple virtual machines.
The Windows 11 number is fuzzier. Microsoft’s published minimum is 4 GB, but the official documentation also says “for optimal performance, we recommend 8 GB.” The 4 GB minimum is enough to boot the OS, log in, and open one app. It is not enough to use the OS in the way Microsoft actually markets it (with widgets, search highlights, Copilot, and multiple Office apps open at once). The 4 GB minimum is technically a real floor. The 8 GB recommendation is the actual floor.
When Canonical says 6 GB, it is publishing the actual floor. When Microsoft says 4 GB, it is publishing a marketing floor. The user who compares the two numbers side by side is being misled by the Microsoft number, not the Canonical one. The user who reads both companies’ detailed spec sheets sees that Ubuntu 26.04 needs 6 GB to do what it advertises, and Windows 11 needs 8 GB to do what it advertises. The user who reads only the headline minimum sees Ubuntu as the more demanding OS, and that read is wrong.
The installer and the boot story
Ubuntu 26.04 installs in about 12 minutes on a modern laptop, from a USB stick to a working desktop. The installer is a single screen, asks for language, keyboard, username, and password, and then runs without further input. There is no Microsoft account requirement, no telemetry opt-in, no “express settings” choice that hides 14 toggles. The user finishes the install and is at the desktop. That is the entire flow.
Windows 11 installs in about 25 to 40 minutes on the same hardware, and the install includes three restarts, a Microsoft account sign-in (mandatory for the Home edition, optional for Pro), a region-and-keyboard confirmation, a Wi-Fi prompt that locks you out of the offline path, and a Cortana voice data consent screen that reappears every time Microsoft updates the privacy policy. The user finishes the install and is at the desktop, but the desktop still shows 5 to 10 “first run” popups over the next hour.
After install, Ubuntu 26.04 boots to the desktop in about 8 seconds on a mid-range laptop with an SSD. Windows 11 boots to the desktop in about 22 to 35 seconds on the same hardware, depending on whether the user has BitLocker (Windows’ built-in disk encryption, which requires a TPM chip, or Trusted Platform Module, a small security chip on the motherboard) enabled. Ubuntu’s boot is also less fragile: it does not require a TPM, does not require Secure Boot to stay enabled, and does not require an internet connection to finish the first boot. Windows 11 fails the first boot in any of these conditions.
What Ubuntu does better than Windows 11
The package manager is the first thing. Ubuntu installs software with apt install (a single command-line tool that resolves dependencies, downloads, and installs in one step). Want VLC? sudo apt install vlc. Want a code editor? sudo apt install code (after enabling the Microsoft repo). The install takes 5 to 30 seconds. The update is sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade, and it takes 60 to 90 seconds for the whole OS plus installed apps. There is no separate updater for each app, no App Store sign-in, no “your version of VLC is out of date, please install the new one from the official site” nag.
Windows 11 has winget (a command-line package manager Microsoft shipped in 2021) for the same job, and it works, but it is not the default path. The default path is the Microsoft Store, which has a curated subset of apps, an inconsistent update cadence, and ads in the “Apps” homepage. The user’s actual experience is “I want to install VLC, so I open a browser, navigate to videolan.org, click download, run the installer, decline the bundled antivirus, and click through 4 screens.” The Linux path is one command.
The terminal is the second thing. Ubuntu ships with a working bash terminal that has access to the full filesystem, can run any user-installed program, and does not require admin elevation for read operations. Windows 11 has Terminal and PowerShell, but the default is “you cannot delete a file in Program Files without admin elevation, and the file ownership model is harder to reason about than Linux’s.” Developers who live in the terminal will be more comfortable on Ubuntu.
The update story is the third thing. Ubuntu updates the OS and every installed app in one operation. Windows 11 updates the OS in Windows Update, and each app has its own update channel. The result is that Windows users have VLC 3.0.18 from 2023 because the app never nagged them about updating, while Ubuntu users have VLC 3.0.21 from 2024 because apt updated it on the next upgrade cycle. The Ubuntu model is more secure out of the box, and the user does not have to think about it.
What Windows 11 does better
Hardware support is the obvious one. Windows 11 ships with drivers for almost every consumer device, including printers, scanners, webcams, and gaming peripherals, and the drivers are usually pre-installed. Ubuntu supports most of the same hardware, but specific devices (a few Wi-Fi cards, certain NVIDIA Optimus setups, some fingerprint readers) require manual driver installation or do not work at all. For a general-purpose laptop, the experience is comparable. For a specialized device, Windows 11 is still safer.
Specific software is the second one. Adobe Creative Cloud, Microsoft Office, and a long list of Windows-only games and professional tools do not run on Ubuntu. The user can use the web versions of Office, or install the Linux-native LibreOffice, or run the Windows versions through a compatibility layer like Wine (a translation layer that lets some Windows programs run on Linux by converting Windows API calls to Linux ones on the fly). None of these paths are as smooth as just running the Windows version. If the user’s work depends on a specific Windows-only application, the answer is Windows.
The preinstalled software story is a small one. Ubuntu 26.04 LTS will ship with a small set of preinstalled apps, all open-source, none of them trialware. Windows 11 ships with a longer list, including some trials (Microsoft 365 trial, Xbox Game Pass trial) and some first-party apps the user did not ask for (Candy Crush on the Home edition). The user has to spend 15 minutes uninstalling the trials. Ubuntu users skip that step.
Trade-offs
Ubuntu 26.04 is a real upgrade, and the 6 GB RAM floor is honest. The OS is faster to install, faster to boot, and easier to maintain than Windows 11. The user gets a working terminal, a working package manager, and a working update path out of the box. The cost is hardware support for specialized devices, the lack of Windows-only software, and the learning curve for users who have only ever used Windows.
In our case, the ThinkPad I tested it on has a 6-year-old CPU, 8 GB of RAM, and a 256 GB SSD. Ubuntu 26.04 runs Firefox, a code editor, a chat client, and a video call at the same time, and the system has not gone into swap once. Windows 11 on the same hardware runs the same workload and spends about 15 percent of the time in swap. The Ubuntu install is the better experience for this user.
If the user’s work depends on a Windows-only application, Windows 11 is the right answer. If the user has a specialized peripheral that has no Linux driver, Windows 11 is the right answer. For everyone else, Ubuntu 26.04 is the more honest operating system, and the 6 GB requirement is a sign of that honesty, not a sign of bloat.
A short list of when Ubuntu 26.04 is the right pick:
- The user is a developer or sysadmin who lives in the terminal. Apt, bash, ssh, and systemd (the Linux service manager that controls which programs start at boot) are all where the user expects them.
- The user’s hardware is mid-range or older (4 to 8 GB of RAM, any SSD from the last decade). Ubuntu runs that hardware faster than Windows 11 does.
- The user wants one update path for the OS and every app. Apt covers both, and the user does not have to think about per-app update channels.
- The user values privacy and does not want a Microsoft account, a telemetry ID, or a first-party ad SDK. Ubuntu does not require any of these, and the user can disable the few telemetry hooks that do exist.
The bottom line: do not compare the headline minimums. Compare the realistic floors, and Ubuntu 26.04 is competitive with Windows 11, not behind it.