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I just experienced a weird crash with my Ubuntu laptop where I had more than I normally do open (Teams web app, discord, edge, Thunderbird). After a little bit I noticed my performance deteriorated which makes sense because this laptop only has 4GB of ram. While browsing Reddit, my screen blacked out with a DOS line at the top. The laptop then when to the lock screen essentially soft rebooting and all my tasks were closed. Does anyone know what could have possibly happened?

This is the output from free -m:

Free-m Command

matigo
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Palmo
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    You could run out of memory. – Pilot6 May 11 '22 at 14:51
  • Do you have your swap disabled? – HomerSimpson May 11 '22 at 15:04
  • Your description suggests that your desktop crashed, which terminates all your applications, loses all your unsaved work. and returns you to the login (not lockscreen, which is different). A desktop crash may have many possible causes. Review your logs and your /var/crash dir to determine the actual cause of that particular crash, No need to wonder or to speculate. – user535733 May 11 '22 at 15:10
  • What is weird is that I just checked the crash logs and there are no logs for today – Palmo May 11 '22 at 15:58
  • @HomerSimpson I don't believe I have it disabled. I honestly don't know what that could be anyways. It is whatever is defaulted for Ubuntu – Palmo May 11 '22 at 17:55
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    Could you [edit] your question to include the terminal output of free -m? You will most likely need a larger swap file, as 4GB of RAM is insufficient when working with many of the applications you listed – matigo May 11 '22 at 21:03
  • @matigo I have edited the post with a screenshot of the command you suggested. – Palmo May 11 '22 at 23:05
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    Your swap is insufficient for your needs. You will want 8~12GB. This answer will show you how to increase your swap so that the system can handle a bit more activity. – matigo May 11 '22 at 23:11
  • Thank you for the help. The reason why I changed my laptop to ubuntu is because for some reason Acer thinks that 32GB of storage is enough to run Windows. I'm going to change the swap little by little to see how much I can get away with. – Palmo May 12 '22 at 00:55
  • At least 4 GB of swap is needed. More would be better but if you only have 32 GB to begin with that is amount of swap is much. btw 32 GB is enough to run Windows (98), – HomerSimpson May 12 '22 at 20:19
  • @HomerSimpson Like I said, I don't know how ACER got away with selling a Windows 10 laptop with that kind of storage. I got it for Christmas to help me with my studies but it has seem to be more of a burden than helpful. Linux is the only thing saving it. – Palmo May 13 '22 at 15:13
  • An OEM win 10 version. It would not have sufficient space for the normal version. As most of the computer users use Windows Acer decided to go with that. A commercial decission. But as we know not a good one though with those specs. You can always put a lightweight Linux distro ( from DamnSmallLinux to Lubuntu) on it, that is the good thing. – HomerSimpson May 14 '22 at 08:12
  • why not just upgrade your laptop with more ram and a new HD,it does not have to cost you a lot. – trond hansen May 14 '22 at 08:23
  • @trondhansen ACER's laptop for whatever reason isn't modular at all – Palmo May 16 '22 at 15:19

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On a laptop with only 32 Gigs of storage and 4 GB of ram I suggest you use Lubuntu. It is an official Ubuntu flavour.

Lubuntu uses the LXDE desktop environment. LXDE stands for Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment, and it is an open source DE characterized by its low resource requirements and adherence to a desktop metaphor that is guaranteed to feel instantly familiar to all Windows users.

LXDE comes with several lightweight alternatives to common applications, including a file manager (PCMan File Manager), terminal emulator (LXTerminal), desktop panel (LXPanel), or GTK+ theme switcher (LXAppearance), just to name a few.

Because the LXDE desktop environment has such low resource requirements, it runs on just about any old or low-end computer with at least a 266 MHz processor, 128 MB of RAM, 3 GB of hard drive space, and basic graphics card.

Ubuntu, on the other hand, requires at least a 2 GHz dual-core processor, 2 GB of RAM, 25 GB of hard drive space, and VGA-capable graphics card with the minimum resolution of 1024 × 768 pixels.

Lubuntu’s low resource requirements also mean that the operating system runs faster on newer computers. Modern web browsers such as Chrome and, to a lesser extent, Firefox are known for being notoriously hungry for memory. By choosing Lubuntu over Ubuntu, you will have more RAM left for applications.Because the LXDE desktop environment has such low resource requirements, it runs on just about any old or low-end computer with at least a 266 MHz processor, 128 MB of RAM, 3 GB of hard drive space, and basic graphics card.

You can also see https://linuxhint.com/ubuntu-vs-lubuntu/ for more info about the differences. Try it from a usb-stick first to see if all works ok before installing it.

Although it is not a direct answer to your question, it might be a solution. btw did you take the screenshot with all the applications opened you mentioned? Or is it without those opened. If it is the last one, you should really consider changing to Lubuntu.

Joepie Es
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