Ubuntu settings after adding additional RAM

Question

My system has 3.8 GB of ram. My system allows 8 GB of ram. If I insert another memory chip of 4 GB, do I have to make any other changes in OS setting etc?

Solution

No, you do not have to make any system changes.
The new RAM size will be detected automatically.

If possible, select a model from the same vendor.
Otherwise, get one with the same specifications.

Some of the important RAM specifications are:

• DIMM (desktop) or SODIMM (notebook) module
• DDR, DDR2, DDR3, or DDR4 RAM
• RAM capacity (in GB)
• RAM speed (in MHz)
  You might mix modules with different speeds or timings,
  but then the slowest settings will be used for all modules.
• voltage
• pin count

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Additional information about the usage of swap:
(credits to @Paddy Landau for this contribution)

Swap may be used for high-memory-intensive tasks such as extensive editing of large videos.
Swap is also used for hibernation - if you want to hibernate, swap must have at least the same
size as RAM. If you never intend to hibernate, 4GB swap space will be sufficient for normal use.

Comments

[Amar Dev]

there is something called swap? right. Do I have to be worried about it?

[cl-netbox]

@AmarDev : When you have 4 GB swap, this should be sufficient, in case you want to have more swap, just boot from Ubuntu installation media, select Try Ubuntu without installing, open GParted on Live desktop and grow the swap partition. But in the end - the more RAM you have, the less swap space you will need. :)

[Ramchandra Apte]

Vendor shouldn't matter at all, but clock rate (Mhz) and other properties of the RAM will matter, so it's better to get something similar or the same model.

[cl-netbox]

@RamchandraApte : Thank you for your contribution - I included the main part of it in the answer ! :)

[jena]

@cl-netbox Isn't swap used to store the content of RAM when you suspend the computer? Wouldn't it cause problems if it's smaller than RAM?

[cl-netbox]

@jan : There are many different opinions on this topic - some say swap matching RAM, some say swap half amount of RAM, some say no swap at all (when the system is installed on a SSD or you have a high amount of RAM) - it depends on what users want, so every user has to decide about swap size himself. :)

[Iluvathar]

@cl-netbox IIRC, when I once tried to grow a swap partition, it appeared to change UUID and no longer worked for hibernation until some reconfiguration.

[Paddy Landau]

On a system with 8Gb, swap may be used for high memory-intensive tasks such as extensive editing of large videos. However, swap is also used for hibernation. If you want to hibernate, your swap must be at least as large as your RAM. If you intend never to hibernate, 4Gb will be plenty for normal use.