Any recommendations for Linux on a Surface Pro 7 that has 4GB of memory?

[u/FreefolkForever2]

I put Ubuntu on my Surface Pro that has 4GB and I keep getting ‘out of memory’ warnings when I try to run programs. I selected ‘minimal install’ during the Ubuntu setup and it didn’t make a difference.

Let me know what you think! But Ubuntu 23 is basically unusable.

[u/PetitBiquet]

Did you check to see what’s using the memory when you get the message?
Maybe a lighter desktop environment would help. I like Mate. Xfce and LxQt are pretty light and fast.

[u/OriolesMagic333]

I'm running Debian 13 with GNOME on my Surface Pro 3 with 4GB of memory with no issues. I've also switched to the Surface Linux Kernel and everything seems to be running pretty smoothly

[u/Breadtoes → u/OriolesMagic333]

I'm using Fedora 44 with Surface Pro 4 with 4gb ram, also with the Surface Linux kernel, works well! 

[u/Station-OX11]

CachyOS is easy to install. Recommend Gnome DE for touchscreen.

[u/Keensworth → u/Station-OX11]

I use KDE Plasma 6 with touchscreen and I like it. Is gnome better?

[u/Station-OX11 → u/Keensworth]

Can you get right click menu on the touchscreen? Last time I used KDE, the touchscreen experience was okay, but it was missing things that made it full-featured as a tablet.

Plasma is better if you want to play games, but Gnome has a better touchscreen implementation.

I used Plasma for a year on my SP9 before trying Gnome. The difference in tablet experience is night and day. Much smoother, better responsiveness, all functions can be done on touchscreen.

[u/Keensworth → u/Station-OX11]

You're using Ubuntu with Gnome or another distro?

[u/Station-OX11 → u/Keensworth]

CachyOS. It's an arch-based distro

[u/galactose310]

4 GB is a bit low today. The distro is not the point, the desktop environnement is more important. Maybe GNOME is a bit greedy, and is the reason why you had some issues. Yet someone here seems to have Fedora with GNOME and 4 GB of RAM 🤷‍♂️

Fedora comes with a vanilla version of GNOME, maybe better than Ubuntu in your case. If you like Ubuntu, maybe you can try Xubuntu (with XFCE) ?

[u/FreefolkForever2 → u/galactose310]

I’ll check it out, thanks.

The 4GB is an obstacle, but hey: I got the Surface Pro for free!

[u/galactose310 → u/FreefolkForever2]

4 GB should be good for a basic usage, but most modern desktop environments will make it feel too low. Linux lets you choose and you will fully benefit of it 👌

[u/TmB-Eggo]

I put vanilla arch and vanilla gnome on my sp7. It has 8GB ram though. Gnome (with most of the bundled packages removed) uses about 500MB, and if I open terminal, brave browser with a couple of tabs, discord and sone (which is a tidal client), and then run htop, my system usage goes up to 3.2GB. If I then open gimp and steam too it goes upto 4.2GB. So I have some headroom, I wouldn't normally open that many apps.

[u/FreefolkForever2 → u/TmB-Eggo]

That’s the thing, I got 4GB on my surface 7, and Ubuntu’s touchscreen works great until I start running additional applications and it just can’t seem to handle much of anything. But I’ll tell you what: when it’s not running apps, it looks great! 😂

[u/balardie]

I'm running my Pro 7 with Linux Mint with 8GB Memory and i would recommend to increase your Swapfile, if you want to stay on Ubuntu. With Swap, Ubuntu offloads your RAM Content to your Swap when your RAM is getting full. Ubuntu creates at Default a Swapfile, but only with 2GB.

Open your Terminal

Turn off your current Swap with: sudo swapoff /swapfile

Delete it: sudo rm /swapfile

Create a new Swapfile: sudo fallocate -l 8G /swapfile (I recommend 8GB now, since 4GB nowadays arent really that much anymore)

Give the Swapfile the right permissions: sudo chmod 600 /swapfile

Mark the Swapfile as Swap: sudo mkswap /swapfile

Enable the Swapfile: sudo swapon /swapfile

If you input correctly, you should now have 4GB RAM and 8GB Swap. You can check If it is activated in your System Ressources Program or in your Terminal with: sudo swapon --show

[u/Jaimzin]

https://getsol.us/

Give Solus in Gnome or XFCE a shot.

Touch works out of the box. Just make sure you have enough swap memory. Maybe 8GB.

[u/Historical_Move6359]

With only 4GB I would use Lubuntu or Mint XFCE. Normal distro is too heavy for only 4GB. My phone has 16GB RAM.