Hold the kernel! Thoughts on stopping updates

[dalto]

@Archie1

I was under the impression that if updates are done more than a week apart then it might lead to the system getting bricked or mucked up.

Updates will start getting more complicated and requiring more manual intervention the longer you wait. However, this doesn’t happen after a few weeks.

@Archie1

Do you update it monthly or fortnightly or bimonthly?

I update when I feel like it. I don’t have a strict schedule. In general this is at least once per month and often 2x per month. However, that doesn’t mean I rigidly update every two weeks.

[cactux]

@Stagger_Lee

I specifically was replying to this comment:

I was under the impression that if updates are done more than a week apart then it might lead to the system getting bricked or mucked up. I did not know that it could be avoided for a month or for a fortnight.

Yes. I understood that.

Just for the context and the record, the same poster had earlier further up in the thread expressed concerns about not getting crucial fixes for their system in time.

@Archie1

@cactux

Update once a week on Sundays at 17:59. Reboot. You are golden until next Sunday.

That is what I end up doing. Not a daily update. This does have a downside though any urgent and important security fixes or zero day exploit fixes will not be installed. Also it would be fantastic to have the ability to do a partial upgrade. But it is not supported in Arch.

Anyways, I am not arguing against what you are saying.

The question of the frequency of updates on an Arch system has been, is being, and will be discussed with the same frequency as ever and with more or less the same answers

[SdW]

I take my laptop when I travel, and update whenever there’s a kernel update. My other machine stays at home. It has gone 2 months between updates with no significant issues.

[Archie1]

@cactux

@Archie1

Thanks @cactux. Will try out arch-audit. Does it have a GUI or a notification panel which can be used? So to check only the first time a user logs into the system in a day?

arch-audit is a CLI that you would need to run yourself in a terminal.

arch-audit-gtk will add an indicator to your system tray and informs you if there are any security updates that you are missing.

Thanks installed these tools. arch-audit and arch-audit-gtk are nifty tools. They should form part of a standard EOS installation.

@dalto

I update when I feel like it. I don’t have a strict schedule. In general this is at least once per month and often 2x per month. However, that doesn’t mean I rigidly update every two weeks.

Yep I will be shifting from now onwards to once or twice a month, excluding when security updates come along. I was under the impression that Arch being a rolling distro needed to update daily or alternate day. Otherwise the consequences would be dire. A week was the max I thought I could stretch without complications.