On: Apple argues in favor of selling Macs with only 8G...

[arp242]

Well I do tend to have some dev-related things running in the background like PostgreSQL, Docker, and things like that, so that rather offsets that. I also run a macOS VM sometimes (to test stuff), and that works reasonable well-ish (much better than Windows) with most of the issues being CPU bound more than anything else.

Also Apple claims their "Unified Memory" is somehow more efficient. I don't really know what that means though.

[smcleod → arp242]

Docker / Containers are native to Linux within it's kernel, to run them on macOS you have to run a Linux VM which is overhead.

The unified memory is indeed more efficient due to it's architecture but it can't solve not having enough ram to hold your software in.

[arp242 → smcleod]

> Docker / Containers are native to Linux within it's kernel, to run them on macOS you have to run a Linux VM which is overhead.

That's not the point; just saying I run some services typical macOS users don't, so my Linux laptop isn't necessarily lighter than a default mac.

Either way, it's perfectly possible to have a functioning 8GB machine, even with Chrome and an electron app. And it's certainly possible with 16GB.