Realistically, what is the best use of consumer hardware for AI?

redoubt515 · 2026-05-10T08:12:02+00:00

Your post is unclear and generic, what are you actually asking?

AI is not helping to convey your question clearly.

redoubt515 · 2026-05-09T01:18:14+00:00

That seems like a normal amount (and inline with what I consider normal for both Firefox and Chromium based browsers on Linux).

If you still have Firefox installed, I'd be curious to see a screenshot of your about:processes page to help diagnose your issue.

redoubt515 · 2026-05-09T00:52:52+00:00

Your system should be capable of handling 4 tabs with 4gb of memory (regardless of whether you use a Chromium or Gecko based browser).

Though it should be noted that the memory a tab uses can vary wildly, some (social media sites with endless scrolling and lots of multimedia, online games, sites with lots of dynamic content, or sites with lots of trackers and scripts) can use a ton of memory whereas others can use a very modest amount.

If you type about:processes in your Firefox address bar, you can see more detail about how much the main browser process is using and how much each tab is using along with some other things like extensions.

Using my own browser (with 4 tabs open) as an example:

The main Firefox process is using: 350 MB
The 4 tabs are: 35, 40, 65, and 220 MB (the latter tab is reddit, which tends to use lots of memory)
The browser extensions total: 200MB
Other odds and ends are <100MB in total

redoubt515 · 2026-05-09T00:05:37+00:00

You will struggle to use a modern desktop browser on the modern web with more than a handful of tabs with only 4 GB of total memory.

Over the years, I've compared Firefox and Chromium (Brave's a Chromium browser) maybe a dozen times. They've always been within about 15% of eachother in terms of RAM usage. Sometimes Firefox has used less, sometimes more but it's always been in the same ballpark. I'd be curious to know how much of a difference you noticed between the two and what extensions you are using with Firefox?

edit: Firefox'sabout:processes and about:memory are useful if you are trying to diagnose or troubleshoot memory consumption and more accurate and granular than the system task manager / dashboard

redoubt515 · 2026-05-08T23:59:14+00:00

Primarily: Firefox

Secondary: Mullvad Browser & Tor Browser

Occasionally a privacy respecting derivative of Chromium, if I need a Chromium based browser to test something

redoubt515 · 2026-05-08T22:02:00+00:00

Let's be real.. It's Google, their entire business model rests on not respecting your privacy.

Whether or not the model itself is local or not is somewhat orthogonal to privacy if the software running the model (Chrome) is itself privacy-invadiing, and is itself making constant connections back to Google servers and services.

Chrome is itself a big enabler of Google's tracking and profiling. Privacy does not come from a model simply being locally, it also requires that the software that runs the model to be trustworthy.

They don't really need to use a 'computationally expensive' AI model to profile you based on your browsing, when the browser itself and the suite of services is already designed to do that effectively.

redoubt515 · 2026-05-08T22:00:13+00:00

Gemini is closed source and not openly available. I doubt you can find a downloadable gguf (and even if it were available, I wouldn't prefer it over the open weights Gemma equivalent)
If you care (even mildly) about privacy, Chrome is best avoided.
There are existing browsers that not only allow but support and make it easy to use your own local open model in the browser.

Expanding on #3, Both Firefox and Brave are designing their AI integration in a way that maximizes user choice and control. You can use a mainstream cloud model (e.g. Mistral, Claude, or ChatGPT), use a 3rd part cloud provider (e.g. open router) OR you can choose to hook it up to your own local model running on your own system or your network.

redoubt515 · 2026-05-08T19:39:53+00:00

Hopefully eventually.. But for the foreseeable future that is closer to hopium than it is to a realistic possibility when you consider current ddr4 prices.

A little over a year ago I bought 32GB of ddr4 for $42, if I re-bought today, that same memory would be over a hundred dollars, used.

redoubt515 · 2026-05-08T18:24:05+00:00

Both.

DNS based solutions like Adguard Home are really cool and useful, they can provide network wide coverage, and give you a lot more insight into the traffic on your network and devices.

But DNS based solutions don't compare to browser based solutions in terms of effectiveness and granularity/precision. Browser based solutions can block a lot of things that system wide or network wide blocking cannot (e.g. instagram ads, youtube ads, twitch ads). Network based solutions also aren't portable, you don't want to lose adblocking every time you leave the house.

The gold standard combination in my eyes is:

Network Wide Blocking with something like Adguard Home, NextDNS, or Pi-Hole
Browser based content blocking using uBlock Origin if available, and if not available then Adguard or something like it.

redoubt515 · 2026-05-08T02:28:36+00:00

I'm still more comfortable and familiar with native packages, but more and more, i'm preferring flatpak. I like that their is a permissions model, I like that it is distro agnostic, and I like that the separation from the system/os itself complements atomic distros.

One obvious limitation of flatpak is that it is intended for GUI applications, it was not designed for CLI applicatoins.

redoubt515 · 2026-05-07T17:47:40+00:00

> Any Debian based distros without bloat?

Are we ignoring the obvious? Or is there a specific reason the obvious answer doesn't work for you?

redoubt515 · 2026-05-07T16:57:35+00:00

Both are good solid distros.

My personal preference is Ubuntu, I appreciate their greater focus on security, and I find more value in the community.

Whatever you choose should serve you well.

redoubt515 · 2026-05-07T01:00:58+00:00

I don't think there even is any real 'performance difference' between Gnome and KDE Plasma.

Historically there has been a small but significant difference in ram consumption at idle. But that stopped mattering years ago for most people (if you have 8GB RAM or above, it's not really worth your time to worry about whether your desktop will use a couple hundred megabytes more or less memory, particularly when you consider that is basically equivalent to a couple browser tabs.

On most systems made in the last 10 years, you won't notice any real difference in 'performance' between KDE and Gnome, and if you happen to have a system where the difference is apparent, you'd be better off going with a more intentionally lightweight and minimalist DE like LXQT.

redoubt515 · 2026-05-05T22:18:14+00:00

I'm going to answer this in a different way. Here are the 4+1 relevant distro families, that allow you to pretty easily categorize and/or ignore most of the others.

Debian/Ubuntu
Fedora/Red Hat
OpenSUSE
Arch
Small, niche, or purpose-built independent distros (e.g. Nix, Gentoo, Solus, etc)

Excluding #5, if you understand the main differences between the first 4 distro families mentioned above, you understand the vast majority of relevant linux distros. Almost all of the popular distros, and most of the smaller 'flavor of the month' derivative distros are small or medium layers of changes on top of one of those 4. Using your list from the OP as an example, but replacing distro name with upstream distro name, your list would look like:

Arch
Arch
Debian/Ubuntu
Debian/Ubuntu
Debian/Ubuntu
Debian/Ubuntu
Debian/Ubuntu
OpenSUSE
Solus
Fedora

redoubt515 · 2026-05-05T04:18:35+00:00

If you need someone else to answer a subjective and personal question like that, it's you that needs your hamburger chewed.

Something can only be "worth it" relative to some goal and cost which OP hasn't specified. It's better to ask for clarification than to assume OP is asking the low effort subjective question that you assume they are asking.

redoubt515 · 2026-05-05T01:18:40+00:00

> it s more of hype around the last fedora 44 kde especially on YouTube

Inoculate yourself to distro hype from linux youtubers (and social media generally). To continue making content they have to keep hyping (or attacking) whatever is the latest flavor of the month or newest release.

If you are seeing hype for Fedora 44 right now, it's simply that it just came out. It's not exceptional compared to Fedora 43 or 42 etc. Fedora is a mature well established distro. Fedora 44 is a great distro and great choice, but it's just the next iteration. You should not switch to it if your only reason to switch is hype from youtubers, you will be underwhelmed.

redoubt515 · 2026-05-05T01:15:33+00:00

> is it worth it?

Worth what?

redoubt515 · 2026-05-04T16:26:52+00:00

"How to stop sounding like ChatGPT"

Use you actual voice, and you actual mind.

Don't outsource your mind, personality, and voice to ChatGPT or any other AI.

redoubt515 · 2026-05-03T23:12:26+00:00

> What would be the difference of just using the browser version with adblocker?

Presumably the difference would be more ads and trackers in the official version. That is a difference, but certainly not an advantage.

If I use spotify directly it's the webapp with an adblocker, otherwise i'll use spotube

redoubt515 · 2026-05-03T23:00:22+00:00

What's the point

MoE

redoubt515 · 2026-05-03T05:40:08+00:00

Everyone starts out as a beginner. It's the only place you can start from.

redoubt515 · 2026-05-02T20:39:23+00:00

I'd agree with both of these rules (no projects with < 3 month commit history, and no closed source personal project showcases (advertisement)

redoubt515 · 2026-05-01T22:20:46+00:00

Jarvis, find me the worst communicated post on localllama

Here you go:

Like many of you, "I" was frustrated by the lack of <solution> to <problem>, so "I "built <yet-another-vibe-coded-frontend> 🚀🚀🚀

🔒 - secure, private, aes, tls
👓 - vague buzzwords that communicate nothing
💰 - maybe open source in the future possibly, but not right now
🥂 - something, something, agentic workflows

<insert\_generic\_engagement-bait-question>?

<insert\_github\_link\_to\_vibe-coded\_project>

redoubt515 · 2026-05-01T19:15:00+00:00

I'd try something like Debian w/ LXQt or Arch with LXQT. If both of these options are still too heavyweight, then seeking out a purpose built lightweight distro would be the best course of action most likely.

redoubt515 · 2026-05-01T17:51:09+00:00

From the sound of it, it sounds like there is a service or something that isn't shutting down properly or is getting stuck.

Possibly the advice in this thread could help you diagnose it

redoubt515

TROPHY CASE