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As per official website Ubuntu 16.04 system requirements are as below,

2 GHz dual core processor or better, 2 GB system memory, 25 GB of free hard drive space,

But my system info is as below,

Processor:- Intel(R) Celeron (R) CPUB815@1.60 GHz, RAM:- 2GB, System type:- 32 bit,

Please help to check whether my system fulfills all requirement?

Ashish Jadhav
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  • Go for Xubuntu or Lubuntu – Severus Tux May 22 '16 at 19:47
  • You can try Ubuntu without installing it, just chose Try Ubuntu after booting a Live CD/USB. Reference: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/try-ubuntu-before-you-install – mgor May 23 '16 at 06:12

2 Answers2

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Those are the recommended system requirements for the system to run at its best. Recommended requirements vs. minimum requirements are two different things.

Your processor is actually a 64bit and capable of running the amd64 release. That designation amd64 only means that it is for 64bit systems.

Ubuntu actually comes in many different flavors that allow for different types of system configurations. Ubuntu GNOME is one of the heaviest desktops requiring much more RAM, Video Memory, CPU. Where Xubuntu and Lubuntu are much more lightweight and require less CPU, RAM, and Video. I prefer Xubuntu as it is configurable, lightweight and looks good.

This answer here might help in deciding which version of Ubuntu Desktop you want to install.

So, you should be able to install and run Ubuntu 16.04.

Community
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Terrance
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Your RAM and drive space seems a bit low for a default ubuntu install running unity. Sure, you can easily install it with those specs, but actually using on a day-to-day basis might be a problem.

RAM

  • If you don't have a dedicated graphics card, the integrated graphics will take up 300-400 MB of your memory. That leaves you with 1.6 GB.
  • Upon boot, with no other processes running, a typical ubuntu unity install will use about 600 MB. You will be left with 1.0 - 1.1 GB.
  • Using firefox (the default browser) will increase your RAM usage to more than 1 GB, depending on the add-ons installed and tabs opened. Your free RAM will be about 400-500 MB (perhaps even less, if you like to visit sites that requires flash or java).
  • With that much free memory left, you can't run another memory intensive application without the system resorting to swapping. Once the system starts swapping, it will be very unresponsive, practically rendering it unusable.

DRIVE SPACE

A default install will take about 4-5 GB of drive space. After installing apps, you will probably end up using 8-12 GB. You will be left with about 13 GB for data. This is not a lot of space considering this is inclusive of cached files (e.g. files stored by apps locally to make them run faster). If you plan to just store simple files (e.g. text files) then no problem. Once you start storing multimedia files...

You also need to allocate 1-2 GB for swap space. More if you believe in the rule-of-thumb: swap = RAM * 2. (I don't believe in it).

SUGGESTION

If your intent is to just try out ubuntu, your system specs should be just fine. However, if this is going to be your main OS, I would recommend looking at more lightweight flavors of ubuntu (xubuntu, lubuntu, etc.).

If it is feasible to boost your RAM to at least 4GB, then you will be OK with a default ubuntu unity installation. Of course, even with 4GB, you can still use more lightweight flavors if you want. :)