I'm planning to set up a dual Linux installation on my desktop with Fedora 42 already running and I'm adding a second 2TB NVME m.2 SSD for Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. I currently have 64GB of DDR5 RAM, and I'm wondering if it makes sense to upgrade to 128GB but split it 50/50 in the BIOS for each OS, or just keep 64GB total allocated to whichever OS I'm using. Are there performance benefits to either setup?
1 Answer
Are you planning to dual boot or run both OSes at the same time using a hypervisor? If it's dual booting, each OS will have access to all the RAM available when it's booted. You can't split the RAM between them in that scenario. If you go with a hypervisor, you'd need to reserve some RAM for the host OS and allocate the rest accordingly to your virtual machines. Just make sure each one has enough to run smoothly!
I'm going the dual boot route, so I'll just be using one OS at a time. What’s the best way to handle the RAM configuration?