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I have a PC with the following specs:

Processor: AMD Phenom II x6 1055T Processor, 2800 Mhz, 6 Core(s), 6 Logical Processors
RAM: 6GB
Motherboard: Gigabyte Technology GA-890-FXA-UD5
Adapter: ATI Radeon HD 5700
Hard Disk: 500GB

This PC has Windows 7 installed. As I can't upgrade Windows, I want to ask if with this specs I can install a (recent) Linux version e.g. Ubuntu/Kubuntu? Or which would work for a desktop with these hardware specs?

In case it helps, I would not be using it for heavy tasks such as gaming, video or image processing, streaming etc

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11
  • You can install anything that you want provided that there aren't hardware checks in place such as with Windows 10 and 11 (as I'm sure you already found found) but what you most likely want to know is whether or not it will run. That depends on what you are using it for and any answers are going to be based on opinion and personal judgement.
    – Nasir Riley
    Commented Jan 27 at 20:34
  • @NasirRiley: I will not be using it for gaming, photo processing, streaming or similar tasks if that helps.
    – Jim
    Commented Jan 27 at 20:36
  • @Jim we can't tell you what you think is acceptable performance. This is really just asking for opinions. Performance will be comparable to what you experience on windows, when you do similar things. Voting to close as really just asking for an opinion.
    – Marcus Müller
    Commented Jan 27 at 21:26
  • @MarcusMüller: I am not asking about acceptable performance. I am asking how can I best utilize this hardware
    – Jim
    Commented Jan 27 at 21:27
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    @Jim … as I have noted below. You can download a Ubuntu bootable stick and just try without wiping anything.
    – Marcus Müller
    Commented Jan 27 at 22:24

1 Answer 1

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Are those specs compatible with an Ubuntu installation?

Yes.

(And also with many other distros, based on Debian and other upstreams.)

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  • As @NasirRiley pointed out in the comment, it is about having a workable system, not just installing. So would Ubuntu work properly?
    – Jim
    Commented Jan 27 at 21:20
  • Yes, of course it would. Ssh into it, emacs source files, run C++ compiler, do whatever. I have used debian cloud servers with less RAM than 6 GiB quite successfully. Even less than a gig. Just be sure to configure a swapfile, so that infrequently used code will get paged out to disk. // If your definition of "properly" is "workload X shall experience 95th percentile latencies less than Y", then specify what {X, Y} mean for this question.
    – J_H
    Commented Jan 27 at 21:56
  • What about the CPU. Due to CPU updating to Windows 11 is impossible. Would the specific CPU generation be fine with Ubuntu?
    – Jim
    Commented Jan 27 at 22:13
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    @Jim honestly, that is written on the Ubuntu download page, and inserting the bootable USB stick, which takes 2 minutes to make will tell you that, will give you certainty. For less effort than asking us here, or us answering here!
    – Marcus Müller
    Commented Jan 27 at 22:18
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    Is the CPU an Intel 286 that doesn’t offer a proper MMU for addressing virtual memory? No. Is it a 386 or 486 that some kernels choose not to support due to usermode security risks? No. Is it even a Pentium? No. Just look at the clock speed. This is clearly a modern CPU. I wouldn’t use it as hypervisor for a commercial multi-tenant offering, due to cache timing issues. But that’s not your proposed use case. INSTALL UBUNTU already, and report back on ACTUAL observations of how the target system behaved under described workloads of interest. “Hypotheticals R us?” No!
    – J_H
    Commented Jan 27 at 22:52

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