I just started using EOS and I see that updates are available multiple times a day. Often it seems that updates require a reboot. So if I want to update as frequently as possible, it seems like I would have to reboot every day. Can I safely ignore this and update without rebooting?
Thanks
Updates are almost always available. Arch has updates all day everyday. Anything that involves the kernel/drivers etc will require a reboot to take effect. You can update and then not reboot → but bare in mind that things may not actually be updated until you reboot.
OR, don’t update 10x a day. Turn off or remove the notifier. . . and just updated once a day/week like most of us. I generally update weekly - and I usually reboot at that point as well.
Also sometimes if you don’t reboot in such case - you may have malfunctioning system, depending on your DE (for example sometimes if xorg & qt5 would be updated on KDE, you could have some glitchfest.)
A restart is required to safely apply critical updates. These include kernel, driver, systemd, grub updates, among others. If you do not restart the system in such cases, do not change anything in the meantime and restart as soon as possible.
One thing I noticed was that if the kernel is updated then you may lose the /usr/lib/modules/<kernelname> directory for the kernel currently loaded.
This means the if you do something that needs to load a kernel module, it will fail.
That may be a rare occurrence - but I kept hitting it because I had the habit of powering on - updating - then doing stuff. And it does depend on what “stuff” is though.
I changed my workflow, to update prior to shutting down for the day.
Good thinking. It gives me an idea for an app enhancement too… 