Do I Need More RAM or Do I Just Need to Stop Installing Linux Mint on Everything?

*A very normal, totally calm journey through realizing I might be the problem.* When I built my little three-node Proxmox cluster months ago, I genuinely thought I'd nailed it. I picked the hardware carefully, slotted in 32GB of RAM, told myself CPU would be the bottleneck, and proudly declared: *"This thing will handle anything I throw at it."* Fast-forward to the day I finally start actually *using* the cluster — you know, high availability experiments, some backup stuff for my phone and iPad, a pentesting lab, general homelab chaos — and I immediately run into the one resource I didn't expect to max out: **RAM.** Like… RAM. The thing I thought I had *more than enough* of. Here's what happened: I spun up a few VMs — Linux Mint, a couple Ubuntu Servers, and a Kali box — and suddenly the memory usage graph shot up like it was trying to warn me a meteor was coming. Half my RAM was just… gone. Instantly. Before I even started doing anything interesting. And in that beautiful moment of panic, I asked myself the one question every homelab person eventually asks: **"Is this a hardware problem… or am I just doing something dumb?"** So I did what any curious person does: I started asking around, reading community threads, and gathering as much collective wisdom as I could from people who have already been through this exact spiral. --- ## **The Community Delivered Some… Opinions** The responses I got fell into two very distinct vibes: ### **1. "You're fine, chill."** Multiple people looked at my setup and basically said: "You have 32GB of RAM. You're using half. This is the opposite of a problem." Honestly? Valid. I needed that. A soothing slap of logic. ### **2. "Why are you installing desktop OSs like you're running an internet café in 2009?"** This was also valid. Several experienced folks pointed out that running full GUI versions of Mint, Ubuntu, and Kali inside VMs is a fantastic way to chew through memory — especially when all I really needed were lightweight, headless servers. One person even said they shaved off tons of RAM usage by going headless across the board. Another added, in the most polite way possible, that desktop environments basically exist to *consume memory for fun.* They're not wrong. --- ## **Then Came the LXC Enthusiasts** Oh boy. If you even whisper "RAM" in a room full of homelab people, someone will immediately show up like a containerized Batman and say: "USE LXC." And honestly? Their arguments were compelling: * "An Ubuntu LXC uses like 50MB of RAM." * "I run twenty containers on 16GB." * "LXCs are lighter, cleaner, and gentler on resources." * "Why are you running so many full VMs for simple services?" These people could convert a VMware engineer. Their commitment to LXCs is inspiring. And after seeing those numbers? Yeah. I get it. --- ## **Then There Were the Memory Ballooning Folks** A very sensible group explained that I should enable ballooning on VMs — set a minimum and maximum memory so the hypervisor can reclaim RAM from idle machines and give it to busier ones. This was probably the most practical piece of advice I got. "Don't statically give everything 4 or 8 GB 'just because.'" "Linux will happily use whatever RAM you hand it for caching." "Check *inside* the VM with htop to see real usage." That's fair. Proxmox's UI can make things look more dramatic than they are. --- ## **And of Course: The ZFS ARC People** At least one person proudly declared: "I set my ZFS ARC as high as possible because I paid for this RAM and I'm going to use it." This is the kind of energy I aspire to have in life. --- ## **Oh, and RAM Prices? Apparently They Are a Disaster** Several people pointed out that buying RAM right now is like walking into the grocery store and finding out apples suddenly cost $14 each. The running theories include: * The AI hardware bubble * Supply chain weirdness * General market chaos * The universe simply being rude The collective message was: "Don't buy RAM unless you absolutely have to right now." Great. Love that for us. --- ## **Some People Dropped Version Numbers Like Prophecies** A few helpful souls simply said things like: "You need to update to 8.4." Or: "Honestly 9.1 is better at memory handling." Then they vanished back into the shadows. No context. No explanation. Just pure homelab cryptic energy. --- ## **In Summary: The Real Problem Is Probably… Me** After filtering through all the wisdom, advice, jokes, complaints about RAM prices, and general homelab energy, I realized something: **I am not actually running out of RAM.** I am just allocating RAM like a chaotic toddler. Here's the near-universal feedback I got from knowledgeable folks: * Linux doesn't need that much RAM unless you force it to. * Desktop environments are RAM hogs. * VMs don't need huge static allocations. * Ballooning works well when used properly. * Proxmox shows allocated memory, not always *used* memory. * Containers are dramatically more efficient for most tasks. * Using 50% of your RAM is normal and good. And best of all: **Unused RAM is wasted RAM.** That line hit me spiritually. I want it on a T-shirt. --- ## **So What Am I Actually Changing?** ### **1. Stop installing full desktop OSs unless I actually need a GUI.** Mint is great, but it doesn't need to live everywhere like parsley. ### **2. Migrate tasks to LXC containers when possible.** If something can run in 50MB instead of 2GB, uh… yes please. ### **3. Turn on memory ballooning for VMs.** Let them expand and contract like living organisms instead of hoarding RAM. ### **4. Check memory *inside* each machine (htop) instead of trusting the host graph alone.** Proxmox is great, but its RAM numbers require context. ### **5. Stop panicking when RAM usage isn't near zero.** That's not how Linux works. That's not how caching works. That's not how virtualized systems work. ### **6. Avoid buying RAM during this price surge.** My wallet agrees with this one wholeheartedly. --- ## **So… Do I Need More RAM?** **No.** Not at the moment, anyway. What I need is better memory management, smarter VM choices, and maybe just a little less enthusiasm for installing full-fat distros everywhere. Using RAM is *good*. Running things efficiently is *better*. And learning that Linux doesn't need 8GB to idle is… freeing. Honestly, the whole experience was a reminder that homelabbing is 50% building, 50% tweaking, and 100% learning that you could've done things smarter the entire time. --- ## **Final Thought: I Will Still Keep One Mint VM Because I Like the Clicky-Click GUI** I know, I know. Headless is efficient. LXCs are magical. Memory matters. But sometimes I just want a comfortable, familiar desktop I can remote into without feeling like I'm operating a submarine. A nice little Mint box. One. Maybe two. Possibly three if I'm having a week. But I'm learning. And now my RAM might actually survive the journey.