5 ms·

If the article reads as a so-what matter, it is worth remembering that the major Linux distributions often rebuild the ramdisk on kernel upgrade as a post-insta

If the article reads as a so-what matter, it is worth remembering that the major Linux distributions often rebuild the ramdisk on kernel upgrade as a post-installation step, which is semi-frequent. Worse is how slow rebuilding is.

semi-extrinsic 7y ago
On Arch it's like ten seconds tops. How slow is it on others?
- garmaine 7y ago
  Same order of magnitude. But that’s kinda ridiculous, no?
  - vbezhenar 7y ago
    Windows updates can take 10-30 minutes with computer unusable for anything else. 10 seconds of background activity does not sound too bad. Why do you care? You should be able to work on your tasks at this time.
    - GordonS 7y ago
      While Windows updates are nowhere near 10s, nowadays they are also nowhere near 30m. Years ago, rarely, you'd get a Windows update that took up to 30m to to complete. These days it's more like a few minutes - certainly noticeable, but let's not exaggerate.
      - z3t4 7y ago
        If the upgrade fails it's very annoying though. First you have to wait 10 minutes for the upgrade, then it reboots, then it upgrades some more, then it discovers something is wrong, it reboots, uninstalls the update which takes maybe minutes, reboots again. That can easily kill half an hour if not more of your work day, as you are not able to use the computer when it's upgrading and rebooting. Compared to Linux where you rarely need to reboot after an update. And you can also choose when you want to upgrade, eg. you can shut off your computer without upgrading. And most importantly, Linux lets your start your computer without having to wait 30 minutes for upgrades. I'm currently using Linux for Windows apps that is no longer supported by Windows. eg. they don't even work in compatibility mode. But they do work in Wine!
        viraptor 7y ago
        If the upgrade fails, that's a completely different issue, not a typical path. We need to separate those, otherwise we'll end up with "On <any> system, when the upgrade catastrophically fails, I have to reinstall the whole machine, so upgrades take hours."
        pixl97 7y ago
        Eh, windows updates, especially when you're including .net 4+ take a pretty considerable amount of time, especially when on a HDD. Server 2016 updates Re very memory hungry.
        z3t4 7y ago
        I get into the install-reboot-uninstall-reboot cycle every time I start Windows (yeh, it's broken, but I've tried nuking the upgrade cache, "repeair" etc). I've also got a few upgrade fails on Linux. Where I had to boot a live-cd/usb and chroot in to fix the problem. And those took a few hours. I've probably spent more time fixing stuff on Linux. But it you would run a distro like Ubuntu, and not make any customization, then the upgrade experience is much better on Linux then Windows.
      - pas 7y ago
        I opted into the insiders thing, to try to help MS make Windows better. I had to opt out of the beta channel, because every update takes a ridiculous amount of time 10+ minutes easy. Multiple reboots. No way.
      - Already__Taken 7y ago
        You've never tried patching server 2016.
    - solarkraft 7y ago
      "It could be worse" is a bad argument against a possible improvement.
  - jmspring 7y ago
    I’m having flashbacks of people comparing their gentoo boot times based off of various config settings.
- nemetroid 7y ago
  FWIW Arch does not use dracut, though it might start doing so in the future: https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-dev-public/2019-May/029570.html https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-dev-public/2019-M...

semi-extrinsic 7y ago

On Arch it's like ten seconds tops. How slow is it on others?

garmaine 7y ago
Same order of magnitude. But that’s kinda ridiculous, no?
- vbezhenar 7y ago
  Windows updates can take 10-30 minutes with computer unusable for anything else. 10 seconds of background activity does not sound too bad. Why do you care? You should be able to work on your tasks at this time.
  - GordonS 7y ago
    While Windows updates are nowhere near 10s, nowadays they are also nowhere near 30m. Years ago, rarely, you'd get a Windows update that took up to 30m to to complete. These days it's more like a few minutes - certainly noticeable, but let's not exaggerate.
    - z3t4 7y ago
      If the upgrade fails it's very annoying though. First you have to wait 10 minutes for the upgrade, then it reboots, then it upgrades some more, then it discovers something is wrong, it reboots, uninstalls the update which takes maybe minutes, reboots again. That can easily kill half an hour if not more of your work day, as you are not able to use the computer when it's upgrading and rebooting. Compared to Linux where you rarely need to reboot after an update. And you can also choose when you want to upgrade, eg. you can shut off your computer without upgrading. And most importantly, Linux lets your start your computer without having to wait 30 minutes for upgrades. I'm currently using Linux for Windows apps that is no longer supported by Windows. eg. they don't even work in compatibility mode. But they do work in Wine!
      - viraptor 7y ago
        If the upgrade fails, that's a completely different issue, not a typical path. We need to separate those, otherwise we'll end up with "On <any> system, when the upgrade catastrophically fails, I have to reinstall the whole machine, so upgrades take hours."
        pixl97 7y ago
        Eh, windows updates, especially when you're including .net 4+ take a pretty considerable amount of time, especially when on a HDD. Server 2016 updates Re very memory hungry.
        z3t4 7y ago
        I get into the install-reboot-uninstall-reboot cycle every time I start Windows (yeh, it's broken, but I've tried nuking the upgrade cache, "repeair" etc). I've also got a few upgrade fails on Linux. Where I had to boot a live-cd/usb and chroot in to fix the problem. And those took a few hours. I've probably spent more time fixing stuff on Linux. But it you would run a distro like Ubuntu, and not make any customization, then the upgrade experience is much better on Linux then Windows.
    - pas 7y ago
      I opted into the insiders thing, to try to help MS make Windows better. I had to opt out of the beta channel, because every update takes a ridiculous amount of time 10+ minutes easy. Multiple reboots. No way.
    - Already__Taken 7y ago
      You've never tried patching server 2016.
  - solarkraft 7y ago
    "It could be worse" is a bad argument against a possible improvement.
- jmspring 7y ago
  I’m having flashbacks of people comparing their gentoo boot times based off of various config settings.
nemetroid 7y ago
FWIW Arch does not use dracut, though it might start doing so in the future: https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-dev-public/2019-May/029570.html https://lists.archlinux.org/pipermail/arch-dev-public/2019-M...