I didn’t see many legitimate answers to your question here so I’ll try. Forget the details such as specific processor and memory. Don’t get lost in the details of this anology.

Imagine you have a very basic computer and a very advanced, powerful computer. You install Lubunutu on each. The basic computer might require 5% of it’s resources just to run the operating system. The advanced computer needs just 0.5% of it’s resources to run the OS.

This sounds like a big difference. 10x more resources required for the basic computer! Really though one has 95% left to run other things and one has 99.5%.

If I gave you two glasses of water that were 95% full and 99.5% full you could easily tell the difference between the two. One is basically overflowing and the other is just full. You wouldn’t describe either as being half full though.

Now imagine you put something like Fedora workstation on that basic computer. This OS is designed for powerful workstations not basic hardware. The basic computer is going to struggle to run it. Let’s say it uses 30% of it’s resources just to run and spikes to 70% usage when you open anything else.

Put that half full glass of water next to the others. Definitely a big difference and you’re going to know it.

Things like Lubunutu aren’t designed to make powerful computers fast it’s meant to make more basic hardware useable. The powerful computer is going to be fast no matter what and you probably want some of the features left out of an OS designed for pure efficiency.

Alpine Linux’s storage requirements are measured in MBs. My router runs a version of Linux. Supercomputers run versions of Linux. Software should be matched to hardware and needs.

Hopefully this helps you!