4 ms·

Do you reboot your machine regularly as a matter of course? I do not. My desktop machine is always up -- except when I am forced to reboot by Microsoft. As far

Do you reboot your machine regularly as a matter of course? I do not. My desktop machine is always up -- except when I am forced to reboot by Microsoft. As far as I'm concerned, the problem is that the system is unable to update itself without rebooting.

AmericanChopper 6y ago
My MacBook needs to reboot to install updates. It never bothers me though because of nice little features like letting me choose when to do it. My Windows machine seems to reboot anytime I take my eyes of it for a few seconds.
- RossBencina 6y ago
  My Windows machine lets me defer updates for up to 30 days. I do that. But then I have to go through a whole dance of updating, rebooting, deferring for 30 days, then putting all of my workspaces back together.
  - AmericanChopper 6y ago
    If I wanted basic functionality to be locked behind tedious admin tasks, I'd just install a Linux distro. As it stands, I just use Windows for games. So it's no big deal when it craps itself.
zamalek 6y ago
> As far as I'm concerned, the problem is that the system is unable to update itself without rebooting. You are absolutely correct! There was a brief period during XP, I think, where this was the case. Irrespective of that, reboots are a fact of life if you have Windows installed, and allowing and choosing the best time for Windows to reboot is a part of having Windows installed. Don't use Windows if you can't deal with the reboots. Use Mac or Linux.
- SkinTaco 6y ago
  >Don't use Windows if you can't deal with the reboots. Use Mac or Linux. Are you the person in charge of this at msft or something? Because frankly I can't see a way to say that with a straight face. "let your computer tell you what to do or use an OS that is inferior because the competition paid literally millions of dollars and abused extreme nepotism to make it that way" Trust me, I'd love to use Linux. But it sucks, because billg and the other founding Microsoft members went out of their way to make it that way. E: I don't know why I'm getting down voted for this, it's a documented thing that really happened. Here's one example of one (of the many) times that it happed: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/05/how-bill-gates-mother-influenced-the-success-of-microsoft.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/05/how-bill-gates-mother-influe... Another example would be the fake error messages they put out on computers that ran DRDos instead of their own DOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR-DOS#DR_DOS_6.0_/_Competition_from_Microsoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR-DOS#DR_DOS_6.0_/_Competitio... >In December 1991, a pre-release version of Windows 3.1 was found to return a non-fatal error message if it detected a non-Microsoft DOS.[7] ... It was a simple matter for Digital Research to patch DR DOS 6.0 to circumvent the AARD code 'authenticity check' in the Windows 3.1 beta by rearranging the order of two internal tables in memory (with no changes in functionality) ... With the detection code disabled, Windows ran perfectly under DR DOS and its successor Novell DOS. The code was present but disabled in the released version of Windows 3.1.[23] You might not remember it if you weren't alive 20 years ago but microsoft played dirty to get to the market position they are in today. FOSS had no hope, and acting like people should just forget this and use crippled software instead is unfair.
  - xlii 6y ago
    Yeah, all that FUD and EEE strategy. I still hear in my head adapted saying that "you either die a hero, or live long enough to become Microsoft" (which is especially valid when one thinks about the big corps nowadays). Younger peers think that Microsoft being evil was a fad or a meme, but I remember bribing lawsuits where Microsoft would earn literal billions of dollars shoving their software to the state offices, schools etc., and vendor locking it to the point where anything FOSS would just bork out. Too bad we don't care for the modern corporate history as much as we do for the non-modern one.
alkonaut 6y ago
Does Linux allow replacing e.g graphics driver without rebooting now? I found that to be a key benefit of Windows back when their new driver model came.
- shock 6y ago
  Yes.
- 2ion 6y ago
  In any case, yes: If it's a userspace-based model with kernel modules (like nvidia) - yes, you can insert/remove kernel modules without rebooting and exchange userspace libs freely. If it's an in-kernel driver part like the i915 module that comes bundled with your distro's kernel, you can kexec the new kernel, which is simple with systemctl kexec. It will likely require to exit and restart the graphical session though.
munchbunny 6y ago
> Do you reboot your machine regularly as a matter of course? I do not. My desktop machine is always up -- except when I am forced to reboot by Microsoft. I don’t either, but also the forced reboots only happen once a month for me, right after patch Tuesdays. I’ve found that setting updates to manual and proactively updating on that day gets rid of almost all forced reboots. Of course now you have an extra thing to remember, but it does generally fix the problem.
vandorjw 6y ago
Same is true in Linux. Unless livepatch is enabled, kernel updates require a reboot.

AmericanChopper 6y ago

My MacBook needs to reboot to install updates. It never bothers me though because of nice little features like letting me choose when to do it. My Windows machine seems to reboot anytime I take my eyes of it for a few seconds.

RossBencina 6y ago
My Windows machine lets me defer updates for up to 30 days. I do that. But then I have to go through a whole dance of updating, rebooting, deferring for 30 days, then putting all of my workspaces back together.
- AmericanChopper 6y ago
  If I wanted basic functionality to be locked behind tedious admin tasks, I'd just install a Linux distro. As it stands, I just use Windows for games. So it's no big deal when it craps itself.

zamalek 6y ago

> As far as I'm concerned, the problem is that the system is unable to update itself without rebooting. You are absolutely correct! There was a brief period during XP, I think, where this was the case. Irrespective of that, reboots are a fact of life if you have Windows installed, and allowing and choosing the best time for Windows to reboot is a part of having Windows installed. Don't use Windows if you can't deal with the reboots. Use Mac or Linux.

SkinTaco 6y ago
>Don't use Windows if you can't deal with the reboots. Use Mac or Linux. Are you the person in charge of this at msft or something? Because frankly I can't see a way to say that with a straight face. "let your computer tell you what to do or use an OS that is inferior because the competition paid literally millions of dollars and abused extreme nepotism to make it that way" Trust me, I'd love to use Linux. But it sucks, because billg and the other founding Microsoft members went out of their way to make it that way. E: I don't know why I'm getting down voted for this, it's a documented thing that really happened. Here's one example of one (of the many) times that it happed: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/05/how-bill-gates-mother-influenced-the-success-of-microsoft.html https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/05/how-bill-gates-mother-influe... Another example would be the fake error messages they put out on computers that ran DRDos instead of their own DOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR-DOS#DR_DOS_6.0_/_Competition_from_Microsoft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DR-DOS#DR_DOS_6.0_/_Competitio... >In December 1991, a pre-release version of Windows 3.1 was found to return a non-fatal error message if it detected a non-Microsoft DOS.[7] ... It was a simple matter for Digital Research to patch DR DOS 6.0 to circumvent the AARD code 'authenticity check' in the Windows 3.1 beta by rearranging the order of two internal tables in memory (with no changes in functionality) ... With the detection code disabled, Windows ran perfectly under DR DOS and its successor Novell DOS. The code was present but disabled in the released version of Windows 3.1.[23] You might not remember it if you weren't alive 20 years ago but microsoft played dirty to get to the market position they are in today. FOSS had no hope, and acting like people should just forget this and use crippled software instead is unfair.
- xlii 6y ago
  Yeah, all that FUD and EEE strategy. I still hear in my head adapted saying that "you either die a hero, or live long enough to become Microsoft" (which is especially valid when one thinks about the big corps nowadays). Younger peers think that Microsoft being evil was a fad or a meme, but I remember bribing lawsuits where Microsoft would earn literal billions of dollars shoving their software to the state offices, schools etc., and vendor locking it to the point where anything FOSS would just bork out. Too bad we don't care for the modern corporate history as much as we do for the non-modern one.

alkonaut 6y ago

Does Linux allow replacing e.g graphics driver without rebooting now? I found that to be a key benefit of Windows back when their new driver model came.

shock 6y ago
Yes.
2ion 6y ago
In any case, yes: If it's a userspace-based model with kernel modules (like nvidia) - yes, you can insert/remove kernel modules without rebooting and exchange userspace libs freely. If it's an in-kernel driver part like the i915 module that comes bundled with your distro's kernel, you can kexec the new kernel, which is simple with systemctl kexec. It will likely require to exit and restart the graphical session though.

munchbunny 6y ago

> Do you reboot your machine regularly as a matter of course? I do not. My desktop machine is always up -- except when I am forced to reboot by Microsoft. I don’t either, but also the forced reboots only happen once a month for me, right after patch Tuesdays. I’ve found that setting updates to manual and proactively updating on that day gets rid of almost all forced reboots. Of course now you have an extra thing to remember, but it does generally fix the problem.

vandorjw 6y ago

Same is true in Linux. Unless livepatch is enabled, kernel updates require a reboot.