Installation / SystemRequirements
This page details the hardware required to run Ubuntu and its derivative versions.
Most people will want to install a desktop system such as Ubuntu, Kubuntu, or Xubuntu. A desktop system is typically used for personal computing tasks and has a graphical user interface (GUI), while a server system typically has a command-line interface (CLI).
Recommended Minimum System Requirements
The Recommended Minimum System Requirements, here, should allow even someone fairly new to installing Ubuntu or Gnu&Linux to easily install a usable system with enough room to be comfortable. A good «rule of thumb» is that machines that could run XP, Vista, Windows 7 or x86 OS X will almost always be a lot faster with Ubuntu even if they are lower-spec than described below. Simply try Ubuntu CD as a LiveCD first to check the hardware works.
Ubuntu Desktop Edition
- 2 GHz dual core processor
- 4 GiB RAM (system memory)
- 25 GB (8.6 GB for minimal) of hard-drive space (or USB stick, memory card or external drive but see LiveCD for an alternative approach)
- VGA capable of 1024×768 screen resolution
- Either a CD/DVD drive or a USB port for the installer media
- Internet access is helpful
Screen resolution will be set at the highest your graphics card can handle but when you boot-up you should be given a «Low graphics mode» option which allows you to set it to something better for your monitor.
On one hand, hardware produced in the last few years or with an efficient architecture or machines built for a specific purpose can often work well with less. For example, a netbook with an 8 GB SSD will work well although there wont be much room for saving stuff directly onto the drive so cloud storage services could help a lot. A machine with a crumbling, 15 year-old, slow, 8 GB, IDE hard-drive probably won’t work and doesn’t really compare with the netbook anyway. It might be worth trying Ubuntu but really start looking at other distros. On the other hand, some GNU/Linux distributions may require more powerful hardware as minimum system requirements, like the Ubuntu GNOME case.
All 64-bit (x86-64) CPUs should be fast enough to run Ubuntu and can run the 32-bit (x86) version as well. For an optimized installation (and especially for those wishing to run more than ~3 GiB of RAM) however, a 64-bit installation CD is available. The 32-bit version tends to be easier to use and runs into less problems. 32-bit ISO images are no longer being produced (as of 17.10).
- 4096 MiB RAM (system memory) for physical installs.
- 2048 MiB RAM (system memory) for virtualised installs.
- 3D Acceleration Capable Videocard with at least 256 MB
Machines that are 10 or more years old (originally preloaded with «Windows ME» or «Windows 2000») that don’t meet these guideline will probably require some work to revive (the RAM usually needs to be upgraded to the level described above). You could try a lighter-weight distro or a minimal install of Ubuntu.
The easiest and most effective step towards a minimal install of Ubuntu is to install a lighter-weight Desktop Environment such as Xfce (see Xubuntu below), LxDE (see Lubuntu (officially supported from 11.10 onward)) or Enlightenment to name just a few of the most popular. Some of the larger applications, such as LibreOffice, could be swapped for very much lighter equivalents but for more information about doing a minimal install please see the guides at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation#Minimal%20installations.
Visual Effects
Visual effects provide various optional special graphical effects for your desktop to make it look and feel more fun and easier to use. Even if your computer is powerful enough to run visual effects, you can turn them off and will still have a usable Ubuntu desktop system.
- ATI (some may require the proprietary fglrx driver)
- Intel (i915 or better, except GMA 500, aka «Poulsbo»)
- NVidia (with their proprietary driver)
For more information on supported graphics cards, see DesktopEffects.
Ubuntu Server (CLI) Installation
Lightweight GUI alternative (Xubuntu and Lubuntu)
If you have an old or low-spec computer or want to get the most out of your hardware, using a medium-lightweight desktop system such as Xubuntu or a lightweight such as Lubuntu is recommended, as they make more efficient use of your system’s resources. Of course, even if you have the newest equipment out, you could still use these two.
Please refer to https://xubuntu.org/requirements/ for Xubuntu recommended resources.
Installation/SystemRequirements (последним исправлял пользователь guiverc 2022-03-07 00:10:15)
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The Recommended Hardware List
Recommended hardware is hardware that Ubuntu users have had no problems with whatsoever. Click here for Ubuntu certified hardware. For Recommended hardware users don’t need extra tweaking or special drivers or configuration file editing. They just work with Ubuntu out-of-the-box. The recommended hardware list is different from the Hardware Support list, because the Hardware Support list contains any hardware and how well it works. The recommended hardware list contains only hardware that works well with Ubuntu.
Target audience
This list is primarily targeted at those looking to purchase new hardware with Ubuntu in mind instead of those who already have hardware they want to install Ubuntu on or use Ubuntu with.
Warning
This list is inclusive of hardware which may stop working with Ubuntu after an upgrade. Due to the nature of proprietary drivers and firmware much of the hardware listed here may only be temporarily compatible. In order to ensure forward compatibility you need to purchase hardware which is freedom compatible. That is it does not depend on proprietary drivers or firmware. This ensures that GNU/Linux and free software developers can continue to support your hardware in the mainline kernel and other mainstream free driver projects after the manufacturers have discontinued support. Manufacturers do not usually support hardware for very long and with more freequent updates being available to Ubuntu users non-free hardware can quickly become unsupported. Some hardware with non-free software dependencies may not even work on Ubuntu.
Current companies/and or projects which sell such hardware are:
Guidelines for posting
The only rule for posting here is that you must list only hardware that will work immediately with Ubuntu. The hardware cannot require the user to compile anything, install extra software, edit files, or do any further tweaking. It must work without any extra effort.
Please keep everything on this one page. The idea is that it is supposed to be a small, digestible list of recommended hardware instead of a large, comprehensive list of all hardware.