Brodie RobertsonAnyone who spread the lie that you never need to reboot Linux should be sentenced for treason
joostruis@BrodieOnLinux Well mostly if there is a power outage you are forced to do so. I recall our build server running Sabayon where we build packages for Sabayon was up for more then 3 years. And this was a heavy duty server.
@BrodieOnLinux heh I scooped up an image from 2020 where I proudly said the server was up for 792 days. It even ran way longer but we had to decommissioned it at some point because we did not need it anymore.
Paul L@BrodieOnLinux
On the other hand there's a valid contrast with operating systems that reboot when they want to (even when you have unsaved work open),
whereas Linux-based systems will ask you or suggest it when the kernel (or initramfs) has been updated but you tend to retain the final decision.
On an LTS distro it is totally ok to go a couple of weeks without a reboot and not have update checking every single day.
Guy who's trying his best :(@BrodieOnLinux I mean, I used to go months without rebooting (I say used to, because I keep over filling my ram, and freezing my system)
The caveat I will say though is, Linux kinda sucks at suspending. It's way more stable if you just leave it running. Though to be fair, no OS has ever, and probably will ever, be as good at any low power state, as Windows XP was at hibernate. You can hibernate XP in seconds, multiple times a day every day for years, and have zero issues. No other OS can.
Nick Bisby@BrodieOnLinux live patching the kernel while it is running is definitely a thing you can do on linux. Generally more complicated than just a standard package update, so I have literally no idea how to actually do it. But it IS possible.
But otherwise yeah, for desktop linux the story should be that Linux never FORCES you to reboot, not that you never NEED to.
@nbisby Hot take: Live patching is a bandaid for terrible server architecture not a solution to updating, if you have redundancy you can reboot a system just fine
@BrodieOnLinux I don't disagree. But it is possible. The lie is that it's a normal thing that happens everywhere.
JC@BrodieOnLinux I never reboot my computer, but that's because I daily-drive on a live-boot OS, and also because I'm a very strange person to choose this life for myself.
solo@BrodieOnLinux you never need to reboot linux*★†‡
*okay you don't need to, but you really should periodically
★if you're doing smth that needs effectively 100% availability and can't take the downtime (at least right now), and are willing to go through process of setting up kernel hot swapping, because you need the security patches asap
†assuming that you aren't updating any packages like drivers or whatnot, and only need/want the security patches, and aren't installing or updating anything and are running extremely secure & battle-tested software
‡and even then, you'll still want to reboot eventually. you're just live-patching the kernel to avoid rebooting right now, but you're going to do it later when it's more convenient
OS/1337@BrodieOnLinux Granted, #Rebooting on #Linux #Servers happens way less than on #Windows "Server" and even on #Desktop.
It's not like on #Windows10 & #Windows11 where the OS forces when it wants to reboot and completely ruins the productivuty of it's users with #RebootOrgies, but rather politely says "Hey, I did update your system. Since it's a Kerbel Update, please consider rebooting me when you got the time..."
And thanks to #SystemD even huge #Desktop distros like #UbuntuLTS (re)boot faster than Windows on the same machine even when you shove it on a 7200rpm 3,5" SATA-2 HDD and Windows on a SATA-6G saturating SSD...
(Yes I'm old enough ro remember having enough time to take a dump on the loo when #SysVinit was a thing and boottimes were measured in minutes...)
Sandwich@BrodieOnLinux
Which very much effort there is the option of Live Kernel Patching. Although you need to restart your Desktop environments or even SystemD itself. So its a billion times simpler to just reboot.
Which very much effort there is the option of Live Kernel Patching. Although you need to restart your Desktop environments or even SystemD itself. So its a billion times simpler to just reboot.