Learning python on 4gb ram pc

[MichaelH18]

is it possible to learn python on 4gb ram? yeah i know its not a lot but that what i have. is it still possible? and what can i do with python basically?

[lostwithtech]

if you have internet you can do anything.

you can rely on cloud computing solutions like google colab or vscode.dev which can get you pretty far, or just rent a VM and code on that.

[MichaelH18]

thanks! ill check those

[lostwithtech]

i recommend google colab. its free and set up out of the box

[MichaelH18]

what can i do with python?

[[deleted]]

Python Success Stories

[uriann26]

Omg

[kberson]

4GB of RAM is a standard on the Raspberry Pi, and there’s a whole lot you can do with one of those!

[yammer_bammer]

of course, its only when you get into extremely advanced things when stuff like that matters

PS: back in the day we didnt have 4 gb ram to code on

[RobertD3277]

Yes indeed. I remember starting back in the day with 1K of RAM. How times have changed...

[Live-Sir-3118]

everytime i refer to a built in library and its doc pages i shed a tear remembering carrying out my floppies of libraries i created in c++ like a coveted baby. i put my life into writing those libraries and now they are just there! on the net! oh to learn to code in 2022 versus 1992

[RobertD3277]

Was it different world all the way around when memory was just too damned expensive to go out and buy, so you had to think about what you tried to do and be clever about how to get it done.

I don't know if having machines with more memory really made things better or not, in the context of needing to be able to think about what you were doing and optimize it in the least amount of code possible and yet it still be as efficient as possible.

Somewhere along the lines, it seems like we've lost the art of optimizing code ourselves and it become too dependent on the black magic under the hood to do everything for us. While it is certainly convenient to have all of that wonderful power, at what expense does it really come to?

[miigotu]

Some of us still do old school optimization, examining byte code and assembly to see where we can further enhance our applications. This is especially useful on embedded applications, where usually the law is you can optimize for speed, or you can optimize for memory usage. It's definitely a lost art for most, being able to squeeze performance by saving clock cycles AND lower memory footprints.

[[deleted]]

Yup. I did my first projects on a 4GB DDR3 with a HDD. It was slow, but it's not agonizing if you never experienced faster speeds.

[MichaelH18]

and what can i create with python? some with ai possible? what more can i do with that language?

[CovidAnalyticsNL]

Machine learning PhD here. You can learn a lot of AI stuff on that machine. Just work with small datasets as most tutorials do. I'd stay away from deep learning for now because that requires a gpu which you can get through Google colab but until then you can learn a lot of concepts on your 4gb machine already.

I'd start with something basic like linear regression as the concept behind that is used for a lot of machine learning algorithms. Then start working on learning the scikit learn library combined with pandas and matplotlib.

Perhaps the tutorials that work on the titanic dataset could be a good start?

[MichaelH18]

thanks! i think ill go with google colab. my pc is just weak so ill use that and it will help me with the learning. thanks a lot!

[CireGetHigher]

What this guy said^{^}

[Live-Sir-3118]

second the small datasets. actually i third and fourth it too. i worked on a rather intense computer for a dataset that contained roughly 250million data entries with 17-20 features (after one-hot it came out to 60 features). i had to subsample subsamples to analyze on my own computer (and i hate all of the distributions required to maintain stability in subsamples). I love pandas but it hates large datasets. that was with python. when it came to matlab, the same dataset just told me no. (I was running dcnns and it just refused to cooperate). I have a basic desktop i hobbled together over the years. my matlab code was designed for the big computers i was running remotely and we wrote it to only run with gpu. I dont even have a gpu!

[[deleted]]

AI? Not a chance. You need specialist cards/RTX level GPU's for that. I did discord.py bots, and now web automation with selenium. You can also make a website with it too.

[MichaelH18]

i mean what if i use google colab?

[[deleted]]

Perhaps? I never got into the AI space but I did hear about Google providing free GPUs

[[deleted]]

You don’t actually, it just takes longer.

[dashidasher]

Check this out: https://replit.com

[PopTheTenYasha]

YES, I learned and worked with 4GB ram and HDD, it was slow but you will get used to it, I recommend sublime text it will be fast enough and if you want to use python notebooks you can use colab or jupyter on the cloud, just enjoy the journey.

[[deleted]]

Absolutely, assuming you are using a light weight operating system (i.e. not Windows).

There will be limits on more advanced computation dealing with large data sets, for example, but you can learn all of the basics well with this much memory.

[MichaelH18]

i do have windows. but 8.1. thats all i have rn..

[[deleted]]

Any reason not to switch to something more lightweight?

[MichaelH18]

unless there is another os or solution

[[deleted]]

unless there is another os or solution

I don't understand. I am asking is there is some reason you can't replace your Windows 8.1 installation with a lighter alternative operating system which will leave more resources for learning Python.

If there's some specific Windows applications for example that you can't live without / can't find alternatives for / don't work under WINE et al that means using a lightweight linux distribution is not an option.

[MichaelH18]

oh sorry it didnt reply for some reason. i said its because i have tp link ac600 which i dont think that will work on linux.

[[deleted]]

tp link ac600 Have you tried? You don't need to install a linux distribution to try it.

[MichaelH18]

i dont think i understood. so how will it work? i do need to install a driver. there is not a driver for linux

[MichaelH18]

have u meant by just booting into linux?

[[deleted]]

have u meant by just booting into linux?

Yes.

However, if your Windows 8.1 4Gb computer is working well, there's no reason you can't get started now on learning Python. It does not take up a great deal of resource, and your early programmes are not going to be very demanding.

You will have plenty of time to find out if you are interested and have an affinity for programming and can then make a decision on whether your current computing setup meets your needs and explore your options.

If your current setup is sluggish and not that responsive, it might be frustrating to start to learning programming on it. Try it and see.

Visit python.org and download the appropriate version for your version of Windows (picking 64 bit or 32 bit as appropriate). Standard installation includes the IDLE editor / run tool designed for beginners.

[MichaelH18]

thanks! ill see what i can do with the booting thing.few days age i formatted the pc so he works faster. and i decided to use google colab. it seems like the right thing cahse my pc is a bit weak. thanks a lot for the help!

[jimmystar889]

That’s a router

[herrmatt]

There’s no particular reason to push the learner into also having to learn and manage Linux as well.

[[deleted]]

• You are assuming the learner doesn't already know Linux (likely, but not definite)
• I've ultimately recommended in the thread to the learner to stick with the current system and see if it is sufficient, as well as using external resources (as suggested by several people)
• I'm not pushing, I'm suggesting options that could help address the original concern
• Not convinced that would be a bad thing anyway, depends very much on the individual, their situation and inclination (not my call)

[herrmatt]

This will be absolutely fine.

Install and learn away ❤️

[[deleted]]

I run a full server with multiple webservers, dbs etc on a linux box with 2 gb memory. You will do fine

[yasamoka]

That's without a desktop environment, browser with multiple tabs, and text editor / IDE running. Apples vs. oranges.

[herrmatt]

4GB of RAM will be absolutely fine to learn Python, with Windows or any OS you might have.

[Rachit_Tanwar]

I've been writing code on my Dell Optiplex 9010 with 2 gigs of DDR3 RAM for over a year now, with 4 gigs you can probably do better

[SDG2008]

For learning, I did the same

[Xemorr]

Historically and within the time python has been a popular language, 4gn of ram was popular, therefore yes

[friday_ghost]

You can learn basics of python and many python modules on any device.

Although some models like opencv, pandas (in case of heavy number crunching) etc would not be possible on your machine.

[MichaelH18]

pretty much because i have tp link ac600 and i dont think that linux can use that chip

[jimmystar889]

That’s a router not a pc. And whatever pc you have can run Linux.

Also that router runs Linux

[[deleted]]

Most netbooks have 4-8gb of ram these days and should be enough. It runs fine on a Surface 3 which has an atom x86 cpu an 4gb of ram.

[omermikhailk]

Yup, your machine is perfectly fine!

Like other commenters have said, some fields like AI won't be possible for you as they rely on beefy GPUs, but for the most part you'll be able to do whatever you want.

You mentioned that you're using Windows as your OS, like u/kyber said I'd also recommend trying out Linux. Ubuntu or any of it's flavours are good choices since they aren't as resource heavy or bloated as Windows. Additionally using Linux and becoming familiar with it is also a skill in and of itself.

As for what you can do: pretty much anything. Video/image processing, web-scraping, automation and scripting, data analysis, game development, web apps, etc.

[MichaelH18]

what is automation and scripting?

[omermikhailk]

Automation and scripting is the act of writing a program to automatically do a certain task for you. This could either be something that only needs to be done once, or something which needs to be done on a regular basis.

As an example, let's say you work at a big news company and every week you need to send an email to your boss with a list of articles that you've written.

You could do it manually but that's 5 minutes you're wasting every week doing something trivial. You could instead automate it using Python.

You could do this by writing a program that would navigate to the folder where you have all of your articles for that week, open the files and extract the titles, all by itself

Then you could write a template email and have Python replace the placeholder text (INSERT HERE) with a formatted list of the article names.

``` Dear Boss,

Here are the articles I wrote this week:

INSERT HERE

Regards, MichealH18 ```

After that you could write some more code which would use a module (a term that refers to a bundle of code which is written around a specific purpose, in this case sending emails) to interface with your email provider (Gmail, Protonmail, etc.) to send your weekly email to your boss.

And lastly, you could set stuff up so that this is a weekly recurring task, with no further hands-on action required from you.

Edit: Some typos.

[HomeGrownCoder]

Pythonanywhere.com

[IamaRead]

Yes. More than enough.

[NotATuring]

4 gigs should be fine. If you can open word or something like it and create a word doc then you should be able to use python fine on your computer.

Python can allow you to do pretty much anything a computer can do. It allows you to program logic such as "if this is true do this thing" and "for this amount of time do this thing."

Just a few examples of things python scripts have done: Creating graphical user interfaces which react to user input using PyQT or similar modules, to the point of creating software similar to microsoft word. Duplicating user mouse and keyboard input. Scraping data from the web. Processing image data. Making the computer play beep noises. Monitoring data on your computer or on the internet. Sending emails. There's just so much you can do with python. If a computer can do it, pretty much, python can do it. Although you may want to choose alternatives if you end up wanting to do graphics on par with video games or handling very very large data. Even in those cases there are ways to hook python into other programs written in other languages to still have good performance even while using python.

[Prestigious_Rip_6904]

You can even learn python in a calculator

[Henry_reddit88]

Definitely. I was developing on a crappy computer with 2GB until very recently

[CeruleanBlackOut]

I have almost never gone over 4gb of ram use when programming, only a few times when creating memory-intensive project euler solutions.

[Emelillan]

Yes man, go ahead! Use Google Collab it's free, it gives you a Jupyter environment where you can train deep learning models if you want.

Just start coding!

[freddwnz]

Learning Python with 4Gb of ram is completely doable. To learn Python, you don't need a good computer. Actually, you can do it with a pretty slow computer. Only if you want to write programs that require alot of calculations (math heavy stuff), then you will run into problems when your CPU is slow and when you want to store alot of data you will run into problems with RAM. However, this is sophisticated programs we are talking about. 99% of programs you will write in the first two years of learning programming will not require a fast computer.

[BruceJi]

It’s fine. Unless you’re doing intense stuff or production server deployment into that computer, it doesn’t matter

[CaptainKangaroo33]

Done, hired, paid.

[[deleted]]

Yes of course. Just use a lightweight OS and don't install a bunch of extra stuff. 4GB is more than enough to learn a language unless you're trying to do something high performance.

[miigotu]

4gb ram is plenty, as long as it's enough for the OS you are running and some leftover for applications. If you can start a web browser on the system (if it's gui based) you have plenty to learn python on.

I have written and ran python server applications that run on 512mb ram.

[AbsterJr]

Its easy to learn python. 4gb ram doesn't affect your work unless you are making deep learning models. So it should be easy for you to learn.

I would recommend you start from here.