I don't remember how much I had, but I think the "contemporary" is the issue. It really needed up to date hardware and most people didn't spend a lot on computers in those days so it would usually have been a year or some old.

And yeah I'm sure I didn't have a ton of ram, I don't remember how much though. I was only a poor student (but as a computer science student I already had a lot more than most people I knew).

But if someone just went home with a CDROM and installed it, it usually would not end well, this was part of the problem. I knew some enthusiasts that loved it but they did invest specifically to run it. That's just not great for an OS that still has to prove itself.