Recovering Resources

[Fritz Whittington]

On or about 2004-01-07 15:46, Benjamin J. Weiss whipped out a trusty #2 
pencil and scribbled:

>From: "robin laing" <robin.laing at drdc-rddc.gc.ca>
><snip>
>  
>
>>I have run linux on computers for months without reboots being required,
>>even after doing updates/upgrades, unlike windows.
>>    
>>
>
>Except after all of these kernel upgrades, where you have to restart for the
>new kernel to take effect. :)
>
>Ben
>  
>
Well, yeah, but there are at least two levels of "required" reboots:

(1)  A program misbehaves, the entire machine locks up, and the only 
thing you can do is reboot.
(2)  You install some new software, or upgrade an existing program, and 
you have to reboot *IF* you want to use the new thing.  (But you can 
choose when.)

Windows often does both 1 and 2; Linux seldom does either, with the sole 
exception of the kernel. 

Although I will admit that if you do a lot of updates to running 
services, then a reboot might be simpler than figuring out all the 
things that have to be stopped and re-started.  RPM scripts can do this 
for you, if the packager does a good job, though.  The important thing 
is that even with a kernel upgrade, you get to choose when. 

-- 
Fritz Whittington
Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. (Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary)

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