4GB: was Up-to-date hardware (laptop) recommendations?

[E.S. Rosenberg]

The thing is that I don't feel a very strong need for more memory...
Of course Linux has always been way better at memory management then
the competition so that may be a factor in things...

Yes firefox has a huge memory footprint, but most of that isn't
required in main memory at any given moment and these days I guess I
stopped playing so much with movie/image editing I also think the SSD
has alleviated the need for large main memory a bit....

With the SSD programs on my laptop seem to start almost
instantaneously, boot/reboot also take nothing, it used to be that I
would go get a drink while I rebooted to update the kernel or
something similar now before I manage to turn my back on the computer
it already rebooted....

As far as features & prices went for the past years they did
change/improve just not so much in RAM, CPUs improved, GPUs (discrete
or integrated), chipsets, weight, screens ssds etc....

Regards,
Eliyahu - אליהו

2015-12-07 18:18 GMT+02:00 Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com>:
> On Mon, 7 Dec 2015 13:30:07 +0200
> "E.S. Rosenberg" <esr+linux-il at g.jct.ac.il> wrote:
>
>> BTW has anyone noticed how long we have been 'stuck' on 4GB RAM being
>> enough memory....
>
> I have.
>
> In July 2011 I bought each of my triplets a laptop they could use for
> their freshman year college in the fall of 2011. At the time it seemed
> like Moore's law was slowing down: It seemed like 4GB had been the most
> common laptop configuration for a year or two, and it had been slowly
> descending in price. I bought each of the three laptops for just under
> $400USD each.
>
> People their age are very hard on laptops. They drop them. They use
> them 10 hours a day. They use them in bed, on the blankets, where
> there's no ventilation. They stumble on the power cord and break the
> power jack. Bottom line, during the 4 years they were in college, I
> needed to buy each of them two additional laptops.
>
> During that time, I noticed prices didn't drop, nor did RAM expand at
> the same price. First there was the touchscreen thing, which seemed to
> add about $200 to the price. So 4GB laptops went up into the high
> $500's. As touchscreens came down in price, 4GB laptops seemed to
> settle in the low $400's. It was the first time I can remember two
> years passing where either features didn't get better or price get
> lower (I don't consider touchscreen a feature).
>
> One of my daughters graduated from college last June. My son graduates
> in a few days. In the last few months, I've *finally* seen the price
> per Gig of laptop RAM go down. 4G laptops have finally achieved their
> 2011 lows, and a few weeks ago Costco was featuring a 6 or 8GB laptop
> for less than $400.
>
> And of course, now laptops and desktops aren't even a commodity
> anymore: The major marketplace is the various kinds of "devices" and
> "reconfigurables". With desktops it's no big deal: It's cheap and easy
> to slam together a 16GB box. With laptops, I wonder if we'll ever get
> better than what's happening now.
>
> Moore's law is dying.
>
> SteveT
>
> Steve Litt
> November 2015 featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques
>      of the Successful Technologist
> http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques
>
> _______________________________________________
> Linux-il mailing list
> Linux-il at cs.huji.ac.il
> http://mailman.cs.huji.ac.il/mailman/listinfo/linux-il