Linux reboots less often than Windoze? Ya, right

Hello all,

I like complaining every now and then and I guess today is one of those days.

Yesterday I was AGAIN facing the dreaded software update - need to reboot now or later. Now it’s been the 3rd time in the last 2 weeks that I am facing this, Is this normal?

I understand that there are a couple of 10.0 CVEs affecting the Linux kernel so I am assuming that’s the reason why behind all of the dynamic development lately but I would like to get a straight answer from the horse’s mouth.

Is it normal that I need to reboot UM even more often than Windoze nowadays? I can barely achieve a 7 days uptime before that reboot prompt pops-up.

What are your thoughts?

Thanks in advance,

Typically, you don’t need to reboot. You can choose to do so later. Which I often do.

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Typically you’ll be prompted to reboot when a core component of the OS is updated, such as the kernel.

Kernel updates are security updates, so they need to be applied and as a result the system needs to be rebooted.

If that’s really a problem for you, Canonical has started rolling out a dynamic kernel patching infrastructure very recently, you can register up to three machines (for free, more machines = paid service) with them and those machines will no longer need to reboot when a kernel patch is rolled out.

https://www.ubuntu.com/server/livepatch

You can get more infos about that by watching LAS episode 440: http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/104121/livepatch-your-cow-las-440/

Here’s a brief howto video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hvqFfwE4u0

7 Likes

Reboot when it’s convenient.

u1@server1$ uptime
 21:12:13 up 40 days,  3:22,  2 users,  load average: 0.52, 0.54, 0.43

It obviously has not been convenient here:

root@system1:~# uptime
 20:14:20 up 425 days, 12:40,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

There have been some important security updates resolved recently where reboot to have them applied is needed. Application software and driver updates don’t usually require a reboot.

Linux only ever asks user to update or reboot, it never takes control of system away from user like Windows

Give it a few months rather than a couple of weeks and you may see things different

2 Likes

Thank you @nikgnomic that answers my original question.

I have not been having any need to Reboot Issues lately! I see your question was answered,

but just including my intake and report,ideas,etc on the Reboot subject.

Sometimes when you do a upgrade you are required to reboot in some cases, but not all cases.

Dolan

PS: How can I unmark all “solved” as unsolved and only check the “good” one? Simple clicking on the green tick mark does not work on more than 2 browsers and 2 OSes.