What I said also applies to that other OS too...it's like having very little petrol in your car...you can't go very far.
This analogy does not work well for me. I say that a low RAM computer can "go just as far", but it will take longer to get there. (Frankly, this statement does not help much, because cars do not "thrash." Keep reading.)
Some people here may not be aware of the difference between "slow" and "thrashing".
A low RAM computer
may be slow, but perfectly useable. On a desktop computer, you can run many applications at the same time - a word processor, a spreadsheet, an email client, a music player, a web browser, a messaging app, etc. All of those many applications appear to be running at the same time, but most of time they are not actively doing anything. The front application is active, and the mail application may awaken to check for new messages from time to time, but most of the time your "running" applications are dormant and are not loaded in RAM at all.
Things can go bad when your computer starts to "thrash". Thrashing occurs when your computer wastes most of its resources on operating system "overhead" or "bookkeeping" like constantly paging or swapping data back and forth between RAM and disk. When thrashing occurs, your computer spends all of its resources moving data around, but not doing much processing on that data.
It is like when you run past your limit. You can't move because you spend all your effort gasping for air to catch your breath.
Some applications need a lot of RAM and can drive your computer into thrashing. That includes graphics and video tools, development tools, and running virtual machines. Opening many browser windows to active websites may do it.
(I will occasionally drive my computer into thrashing by launching one too many virtual machines at the same time. If I walk away from the "frozen" computer for 15-30 minutes, eventually the thrashing will "unwind". At that point I can regain control to suspend or shutdown virtual machines to prevent further thrashing.)