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I am using samsung cpu with Intel Pentium P4 processor and 512MB RAM. Can I run ubuntu with these specifications smoothly?

blackops
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Yes, AND No. I have run late-ish variants of Ubuntu, 12.04 and higher on computers with less than 1g of RAM, but if I recall correctly, I had difficulty performing the installation due to the low memory. In the end, I installed the OS on a separate computer with more RAM and then moved the drive to the computer with the lesser quantity of RAM and it worked. I would not go so far as to say it worked terribly well, but it worked.

In my experience Pentium 4's actually run pretty well with Ubuntu, provided they have enough RAM. My definition of enough might not be someone else's. In my experience, the cutoff is about 1.25gb, below which the system is annoyingly slow and prefers to have only one application loaded at a time. My advice to you would be to see if you can add 1gb of RAM to your machine.

I would guess that your 512 is made up of two 256 modules. I would advise you to take one of them out and replace it with a 1gb, thus upgrading to the minimum I outlined and spending a minimum of money. If you can afford to purchase two such modules and expand your memory to 2gb, I would advise doing so.

Had you listed the brand and model of your machine, I probably would have looked up a favorable price for you on Amazon.com

gyropyge
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  • You might also wish to take a look at lubuntu which uses a much lighter weight desktop than mainstream Ubuntu. Even then I suspect that 512M is going to be on the low side of usable. – ssta Oct 14 '15 at 08:29
  • Well, if we are going to go THERE, we might as well suggest this user install the Debian based DSL (Damn Small Linux) which, though graphical, I believe I've heard can run with as little as 16mb of ram on a 486. It would certainly run great on this 486 without any hardware upgrades. The only question is, would the user enjoy it? http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ – gyropyge Oct 14 '15 at 08:37
  • The point of suggesting lubuntu as an alternative is that it's still (basically) Ubuntu, whilst needing less hardware. You get this "out of the box" which makes it suitable for a new user. If it were me I'd just remove Unity and use something lighter by hand, but it's nice to have an installer do it for you. A 'problem' like this basically has two paths towards a 'solution'. Either get more hardware, or minimise the hardware requirements. The 'best' solution is probably a balance between the two – ssta Oct 14 '15 at 10:27
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I won't use the word smoothly at all, but it's surely doable. I would head towards less resources-hungry versions anyway, like xubuntu or lubuntu as said. If you could get your hands on an old ram bank (say another 512 for example) you would get a better experience with Ubuntu

Seb
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