Yes you can. As others have pointed out, it the DE that uses most system resources. For common development task you don't need 3D gimmick. You can install light

Yes you can. As others have pointed out, it the DE that uses most system resources. For common development task you don't need 3D gimmick. You can install lightweight DE like LXDE or XFCE. I use Xubuntu in my home pc and installed it as a Virtualbox guest in my office pc allocating 1.5GB of RAM. Things have been buttery smooth. For a comparison of system resources used by different DEs see the article http://pclosmag.com/html/Issues/201109/page08.html http://pclosmag.com/html/Issues/201109/page08.html. The article is a bit old but still relevant.