Hardware requirements question

[Chemiker]

Hello,

Could you please tell me if the following system is suitable for Kubuntu 19.04.

• NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory
• 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 3MB on-chip shared L2 cache
• 8GB (two 4GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 memory
• SSD 480GB

The computer will be used mostly for writing a thesis, with many simultaneously opened documents and web pages. Sometimes, not heavy graphics.

Thanks!

[Don B. Cilly]

I have 18.04 running just fine on a laptop with a single-core 1.8GHz CPU, Intel "iznogoud" graphics and 4G of RAM.
I can do just about anything on it.

[claydoh]

Hello,

Could you please tell me if the following system is suitable for Kubuntu 19.04.

• NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics processor with 256MB of DDR3 SDRAM shared with main memory
• 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor with 3MB on-chip shared L2 cache
• 8GB (two 4GB SO-DIMMs) of 1066MHz DDR3 memory
• SSD 480GB

The computer will be used mostly for writing a thesis, with many simultaneously opened documents and web pages. Sometimes, not heavy graphics.

Thanks!

It should be fine It will, be a bit slow in spots, butt the 8gb ram will make up for a lot of this.
Web browsing is what really bogs things down, and the extra ram will help with that, if you like having lots of tabs.

Until about two years ago, my PC was a dual core Pentium, not even a core2duo, and it was just fine. It ran 24/7, and was upgraded every 6 months from at least 13.04, through 17.04 with no issue.

My recommendation is to do the 'minimal' install option, to keep extra things off that run in the background - the Kmail/Kontact Akonadi database server, and the MPD music player server. You might consider turning off the file indexer, or limit it to any relevant document folders, if you want to use that as a tool for your writing.

The minimalm option will not have much of any software installed at all, so you will need to install your word processor and anything else you need.


Not sure how well the open-source video driver will work with your graphics card, but even if you don't do anything graphically intensive, it might be worth installing the recommended 'Legacy" Nvidia driver using the Driver Manager. Plasma does make use of the graphics card for the desktop quite a bit. You can of course disable desktop effects altogether, but you probably will appreciate a smoother running interface. The Proprietary drivers also make for a likely much better video playback experience. Do give the stock drivers a go for a bit, though, as they might be just fine for your needs, as they have improved a lot in recent years.

[Chemiker]

Don B. Cilly, claydoh, thank you so much for your answers!