• Zark of Grunfberg (unregistered) in reply to Son of the Dancing Pigeon

    Finland...

  • Yaro Kasear (unregistered) in reply to Larry

    Considering he clicked something on a server tells me it's a half-baked Windows server that's probably infected already anyway.

  • I (unregistered) in reply to Ralph
    Ralph:
    C:
    Ken B.:
    at least they're a step above those programs that do "rebooting in 60 seconds", "59", "58", ... with no "cancel" capability.
    If you *REALLY* wanted the cancel capability, an End Process would do the job. ;-)
    If you *REALLY* knew your favorite OS as well as those of us who hate it do*, you'd know that when you go to the task manager and kill the process, another one just spawns to take its place, and the countdown timer doesn't even reset.

    Thanks for playing though, please try again later.

    • You see, it isn't your computer, it's theirs to do with as they please, whenever they want, user be damned. I can't see how so many people find this arrogance tolerable, much less enjoy licking its boots (and frequent reboots). We'd never put up with this kind of behavior from other humans.

    And if you knew the OS as well as those of us are a little more rational about it's capabilities and limitations, you would realize that if a restart cannot be killed through killing the process, there are one of two main possibilities:

    A) There is another parent process (probably the original installer) that is relaunching the killed process. In this case the problem is with the application, not the OS and the solution would be to kill the parent process before killing the child.

    B) It is using the system shutdown functionality. In this case, a simple "shutdown -a" will abort it.

    An OS isn't yours or theirs. It is (for PCs) just a bunch of software that runs on a bunch of hardware that you have and that does more or less what is is written to do.

  • Max (unregistered) in reply to Ralph
    Ralph:
    Ken B.:
    Dontcha love those programs with "click OK to reboot", with no option to manually reboot later?

    Well, at least they're a step above those programs that do "rebooting in 60 seconds", "59", "58", ... with no "cancel" capability.

    Oh you mean Windows. Once I had spent more than 24 hours rendering an animation. It was almost done when I got this nice popup "Rebooting in 5 minutes, screw you loser..." and no way to stop it.

    What's cute was the popup was even recorded into my movie!

    I hate Windows. And that is only one of about ten thousand reasons.

    I know you MS lovers think Unix people are stuck up elitist snobs who walk around with our noses in the air smug in the knowledge that our system is better. But did you ever consider... we know your system very well. It is impossible to avoid. But you don't know our system very well. If you did, you'd join the smug snobs too.

    I can only attest to Linux, and the Linux smug snobs are quick to point out that it is Unix-like, but I can say that I DO know Linux very well. Why is that? Because I wanted to get the video drivers working. And then I wanted to get the audio drivers working again. Then I wanted the network back up... You can see where I'm going with this. I've tried several distros, and there's always been at least one thing that doesn't quite work right. I hear Ubuntu's pretty good, if I ever try again I'll give that one a shot.

    I will say, what Linux does well, it does very well. But there's something to be said for an OS that doesn't require every user to have advanced computer knowledge to get all the components working. The fact that anyone can use Windows with minimal training is both its strength, and - as this site highlights - its weakness.

    I'm not fishing for a list of OSes. You could suggest OSX, BSD, Unix, etc., but in the end they'll all have strengths and weaknesses. My point is that you shouldn't assume everyone uses Windows because they haven't tried anything else. Some of us have, and for one reason or another, actually found your golden OS lacking.

    In the end, I don't want to tell the OS how to do everything, I'd just like my computer to analyze some data, send a report to the printer, play a video of a cat jumping in a box, or do some other computer things. A perfect OS will do all these things without you noticing the OS at all. If Unix does all these things for you without effort on your part, that's great! But my experiences have not been so fortunate, so I'm stuck with Windows which works pretty well - except when it doesn't.

  • grammar_nazi (unregistered)

    "I guess even computer's find errors to be painful."

    I find bad grammar painful.

  • Mike (unregistered) in reply to Silfax
    Silfax:
    Larry:
    TRWTF is operating systems that require rebooting.

    Depends on what you are updating. Some system components will require a reboot on any os.

    Exactly. Like Microsoft Word. Or iTunes on the Mac.

  • Chris (unregistered) in reply to anon

    Yeah, it turns out that is what comes up when you try to boot a G4 Mac with an Intel version of OSX (or the other way around. I don't recall what I was doing exactly that day).

  • Jay (unregistered) in reply to Ralph
    Ralph:
    I know you MS lovers think Unix people are stuck up elitist snobs who walk around with our noses in the air smug in the knowledge that our system is better. But did you ever consider... we know your system very well. It is impossible to avoid. But you don't know our system very well. If you did, you'd join the smug snobs too.

    What really baffles me is people who get smug and stuck up about the fact that they USE a certain product. If you were instrumental in CREATING Linux, I could certainly understand you being proud of your achievement. I could even comprehend you being smug about its superiorities over competing products and tolerate the inherent rudeness. But if you had nothing to do with inventing it, exactly what is it that you're so proud of?

    I routinely get a laugh out of teenagers who think they're so much better than the older generation because THEY grew up with cell phones and the Internet and iPods and the previous generation didn't. Umm, maybe the reason why you grew up with those things while the previous generation didn't, is because the previous generation invented them.

  • (cs) in reply to frits

    I'm a people person!

  • Huzzah! (unregistered) in reply to Max
    Max:
    In the end, I don't want to tell the OS how to do everything, I'd just like my computer to analyze some data, send a report to the printer, play a video of a cat jumping in a box, or do some other computer things. A perfect OS will do all these things without you noticing the OS at all.
    Not defending Unix/Linux here but these days, in many cases, this is a problem originating with the vendors (i.e., not providing drivers or an API). Prime example: NetGear doesn't support *nix OS's in any fashion, to the point that they say the equivalent of "go bug some *nix experts to write a driver for you". If vendors provided better support (either end-user level or *nix developer level), there'd be less of these issues.
  • Ditto (unregistered) in reply to pnieuwkamp

    The best is what we get, software updates roll out to our computers, then a prompt comes up:

    "You need to reboot your computer, reboot will occur in 60 seconds ...; <OK>" .. and it starts counting down ... of course, as soon as you click OK, it reboots .. (oh, did I mention it's a modal Popup? Yep, can't get to anything else to save/close/whatever ..) sigh

    Captcha: tego - Lego for gifted children ...

  • anon (unregistered) in reply to Ralph
    Ralph:
    Oh you mean Windows. Once I had spent more than 24 hours rendering an animation. It was almost done when I got this nice popup "Rebooting in 5 minutes, screw you loser..." and no way to stop it.
    You realize that this is, if not initiated by your helpful networt admin, a big red warning sign. Usually, this tells you that a really important component of the OS just up and died (winlogon is the usual suspect). It doesn't do that on it's own. This is a sign of a malware infection or flaky hardware. Windows had nothing to do with it, and a shutdown was, in fact the only sensible way to go.
  • LB (unregistered) in reply to Ralph
    Ralph:
    Ken B.:
    Well, at least they're a step above those programs that do "rebooting in 60 seconds", "59", "58", ... with no "cancel" capability.
    Oh you mean Windows. Once I had spent more than 24 hours rendering an animation. It was almost done when I got this nice popup "Rebooting in 5 minutes, screw you loser..." and no way to stop it. I hate Windows. And that is only one of about ten thousand reasons.

    I know you MS lovers think Unix people are stuck up elitist snobs who walk around with our noses in the air smug in the knowledge that our system is better. But did you ever consider... we know your system very well. It is impossible to avoid. But you don't know our system very well. If you did, you'd join the smug snobs too.

    Well, it doesn't sound like you know Windows very well if you can't even tell the difference between an OS and a program running on that OS. Windows didn't reboot itself. You or your sysadmin was running a program to reboot it. If you were running the program yourself, then you only have yourself to blame. If your sysadmin did this to you then quit blaming MS for the fact that your sysadmin is a jerk who doesn't recognize that the computers are there for the sake of the users and not for the sake of the admin staff.

  • Ah, paratus (unregistered) in reply to Zark of Grunfberg
    Zark of Grunfberg:
    Finland...
    As per your request

    You're welcome.

  • Lego (unregistered) in reply to Zark of Grunfberg
    Zark of Grunfberg:
    Finland...

    Ok, free association Friday. My favorite!

    I'm going with:

    Salmiak

    Mmmm more salmiak please!

    --Lego

  • Dark Wuschel (unregistered)

    Re-Wuschel?

    Well first time I ever read the term "pay phrase". After looking it up, all i can say is TRWTF is "Pay Phrase"!

    Obligatory Meme: "I have phrased your pay! Pray that i don't pay your phrase!"

  • The Typinator (unregistered) in reply to Chris
    Chris:
    I hope your equally predictable and uninspired response to it gave you some monetary amusement. :)
    FTFY
  • The Corrector (unregistered) in reply to Lego
    Lego:
    Zark of Grunfberg:
    Finland...

    Ok, free association Friday. My favorite!

    I'm going with:

    Selma Hayek

    Mmmm more Selma Hayek please!

    --Lego

    FTFY

  • (cs) in reply to anon
    anon:
    Ralph:
    Oh you mean Windows. Once I had spent more than 24 hours rendering an animation. It was almost done when I got this nice popup "Rebooting in 5 minutes, screw you loser..." and no way to stop it.
    You realize that this is, if not initiated by your helpful network admin, a big red warning sign. Usually, this tells you that a really important component of the OS just up and died (winlogon is the usual suspect). It doesn't do that on it's own. This is a sign of a malware infection or flaky hardware. Windows had nothing to do with it, and a shutdown was, in fact the only sensible way to go.
    Another WTF is rendering programs or other time-consuming processes that don't checkpoint themselves!
  • (cs) in reply to frits
    frits:
    I'm not a number, I'm a free man!

    By hook or by crook, we will!

  • BOFH (unregistered) in reply to LB
    LB:
    If your sysadmin did this to you then quit blaming MS for the fact that your sysadmin is a jerk who doesn't recognize that the computers are there for the sake of the users and not for the sake of the admin staff.
    You're. No. Fun. At. All. -BOFH
  • (cs)
    I wasn't interested in the offer until I got to Promo Line 3," F Gerdes writes, "Promo Line 5 really sold me on it.
    TRWTF is that you can't buy gasoline without being bombarded with offers for irrelevent and unwanted stuff.
  • Ralph (unregistered) in reply to Max
    Max:
    there's something to be said for an OS that doesn't require every user to have advanced computer knowledge to get all the components working.
    And what OS is that?

    Did you "get all the components working"? And do you lack "advanced computer knowledge"? If so, congratulations. I think you'll find most Windows users let some other person -- with "advanced computer knowledge" -- "get all the components working".

    Buy a system with your OS of choice preinstalled and preconfigured if you don't want to set it up yourself. Or, set it up yourself and expect to do some work.

  • Ralph (unregistered) in reply to anon
    anon:
    Ralph:
    Oh you mean Windows. Once I had spent more than 24 hours rendering an animation. It was almost done when I got this nice popup "Rebooting in 5 minutes, screw you loser..." and no way to stop it.
    You realize that this is, if not initiated by your helpful networt admin, a big red warning sign. Usually, this tells you that a really important component of the OS just up and died (winlogon is the usual suspect). It doesn't do that on it's own. This is a sign of a malware infection or flaky hardware. Windows had nothing to do with it, and a shutdown was, in fact the only sensible way to go.
    So, Windows has nothing to do with the OS that died?

    Actually this was triggered by Windows Updates -- a "feature" of the OS -- necessary because there seem to be a half dozen "anyone anywhere can root your computer" bugs every month, despite that "the most secure version of Windows ever" was up to Service Pack 3 by then.

  • Dan (unregistered) in reply to LB
    LB:
    Ralph:
    Ken B.:
    Well, at least they're a step above those programs that do "rebooting in 60 seconds", "59", "58", ... with no "cancel" capability.
    Oh you mean Windows. Once I had spent more than 24 hours rendering an animation. It was almost done when I got this nice popup "Rebooting in 5 minutes, screw you loser..." and no way to stop it. I hate Windows. And that is only one of about ten thousand reasons.

    I know you MS lovers think Unix people are stuck up elitist snobs who walk around with our noses in the air smug in the knowledge that our system is better. But did you ever consider... we know your system very well. It is impossible to avoid. But you don't know our system very well. If you did, you'd join the smug snobs too.

    Well, it doesn't sound like you know Windows very well if you can't even tell the difference between an OS and a program running on that OS. Windows didn't reboot itself. You or your sysadmin was running a program to reboot it. If you were running the program yourself, then you only have yourself to blame. If your sysadmin did this to you then quit blaming MS for the fact that your sysadmin is a jerk who doesn't recognize that the computers are there for the sake of the users and not for the sake of the admin staff.

    Some Windows updates WILL restart your computer without asking you. It even announces itself, something along the lines of "Windows has finished installing updates and will now restart your computer in xxx seconds." It does give you the option to cancel, but if you happen to be at lunch or in the middle of rendering a movie or something, guess what?

    Windows Server 2008 is configured out of the box to install updates and reboot itself automatically.

  • cmd (unregistered) in reply to Ralph
    Ralph:
    If you *REALLY* knew your favorite OS as well as those of us who hate it do*, you'd know that when you go to the task manager and kill the process, another one just spawns to take its place, and the countdown timer doesn't even reset.

    shutdown -a

  • Whiner (unregistered) in reply to cmd
    cmd:
    Ralph:
    If you *REALLY* knew your favorite OS as well as those of us who hate it do*, you'd know that when you go to the task manager and kill the process, another one just spawns to take its place, and the countdown timer doesn't even reset.

    shutdown -a

    Oh Gawd, you're not suggesting anyone should have to learn a nasty command line interface, are you?

  • Chris (unregistered) in reply to The Typinator
    The Typinator:
    Chris:
    I hope your equally predictable and uninspired response to it gave you some monetary amusement. :)
    FTFY

    Much appreciated Typinator. I hope the aforesaid monetary amusement goes to a good charity. If not, I'll be happy to open my own, and accept all proceeds. ;)

  • (cs)

    That computer is in so much pain, it's screaming! "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeh!" Maybe that noise on the address bus caused the errors. I just wonder if it's in as much pain as the grammar Nazi in me seeing that misplaced apostrophe - to say nothing of the random "Chris" below.

    I really wonder, too, how dummy text gets on a printed ad inside a machine.

    Samsung definitely has some ODD firmware. Especially if by ODD you mean broken. Visual Studio 6 is another one that has the nice "feature" of lacking a "don't reboot now" option - but the worst offender is IE6, which reboots without even a warning after it's done. There were also some versions of Windows Update that only give you a "rebooting in 5 minutes" warning, or a "reboot now?" prompt - the problem with the latter was, if you clicked no, it'd pop up again 5 minutes later, stealing focus, with Yes selected, inevitably while you were in the middle of typing something with spaces in it.

    Clearly, TRWTF is that I was installing IE6 (and moreso that I had to to make various important parts of the OS work).

  • Chris (unregistered) in reply to Max
    Max:
    Ralph:
    Ken B.:
    Dontcha love those programs with "click OK to reboot", with no option to manually reboot later?

    Well, at least they're a step above those programs that do "rebooting in 60 seconds", "59", "58", ... with no "cancel" capability.

    Oh you mean Windows. Once I had spent more than 24 hours rendering an animation. It was almost done when I got this nice popup "Rebooting in 5 minutes, screw you loser..." and no way to stop it.

    What's cute was the popup was even recorded into my movie!

    I hate Windows. And that is only one of about ten thousand reasons.

    I know you MS lovers think Unix people are stuck up elitist snobs who walk around with our noses in the air smug in the knowledge that our system is better. But did you ever consider... we know your system very well. It is impossible to avoid. But you don't know our system very well. If you did, you'd join the smug snobs too.

    I can only attest to Linux, and the Linux smug snobs are quick to point out that it is Unix-like, but I can say that I DO know Linux very well. Why is that? Because I wanted to get the video drivers working. And then I wanted to get the audio drivers working again. Then I wanted the network back up... You can see where I'm going with this. I've tried several distros, and there's always been at least one thing that doesn't quite work right. I hear Ubuntu's pretty good, if I ever try again I'll give that one a shot.

    I will say, what Linux does well, it does very well. But there's something to be said for an OS that doesn't require every user to have advanced computer knowledge to get all the components working. The fact that anyone can use Windows with minimal training is both its strength, and - as this site highlights - its weakness.

    I'm not fishing for a list of OSes. You could suggest OSX, BSD, Unix, etc., but in the end they'll all have strengths and weaknesses. My point is that you shouldn't assume everyone uses Windows because they haven't tried anything else. Some of us have, and for one reason or another, actually found your golden OS lacking.

    In the end, I don't want to tell the OS how to do everything, I'd just like my computer to analyze some data, send a report to the printer, play a video of a cat jumping in a box, or do some other computer things. A perfect OS will do all these things without you noticing the OS at all. If Unix does all these things for you without effort on your part, that's great! But my experiences have not been so fortunate, so I'm stuck with Windows which works pretty well - except when it doesn't.

    Personally, I have no issues with Windows (Vista). It's been running problem free for me for years. I also have an Ubuntu box at home, which if my favorite Linux distro by far. At the office I use Fedora... which isn't bad, but has crappy drivers. I've yet to find a stable driver for my ATI card.

    Captcha = verto. Russian for "turn around", "translate", "exchange", "retreat". All quite descriptive terms when pondering an OS change.

  • anon (unregistered) in reply to Ralph
    Ralph:
    anon:
    Ralph:
    Oh you mean Windows. Once I had spent more than 24 hours rendering an animation. It was almost done when I got this nice popup "Rebooting in 5 minutes, screw you loser..." and no way to stop it.
    You realize that this is, if not initiated by your helpful networt admin, a big red warning sign. Usually, this tells you that a really important component of the OS just up and died (winlogon is the usual suspect). It doesn't do that on it's own. This is a sign of a malware infection or flaky hardware. Windows had nothing to do with it, and a shutdown was, in fact the only sensible way to go.
    So, Windows has nothing to do with the OS that died?

    Actually this was triggered by Windows Updates -- a "feature" of the OS -- necessary because there seem to be a half dozen "anyone anywhere can root your computer" bugs every month, despite that "the most secure version of Windows ever" was up to Service Pack 3 by then.

    So you're saying that if a virus infects and (accidentally) crashes a critical Windows component, it's the OS's fault? How so?

    And if you're doing a 24-hour rendering, why don't you just turn auto-updates off? (For that matter, which version of Windows still has a reboot without asking??)

  • sheldon (unregistered) in reply to Ralph
    Ralph:
    If you *REALLY* knew your favorite OS as well as those of us who hate it do*, you'd know that when you go to the task manager and kill the process, another one just spawns to take its place, and the countdown timer doesn't even reset.
    Which version of Windows was it? I used various versions for years and not once have I seen a shutdown counter I couldn't turn off.
  • sheldon (unregistered) in reply to Ralph
    Ralph:
    Buy a system with your OS of choice preinstalled and preconfigured if you don't want to set it up yourself. Or, set it up yourself and expect to do some work.
    I think his point was that the amount of work you expect to do when setting up Windows yourself is much lower than for linux.
  • sheldon (unregistered) in reply to Ralph
    Ralph:
    Actually this was triggered by Windows Updates -- a "feature" of the OS
    You can configure the updates to never install, or to ask you before installing, etc. It's ironic that this comes from a person who just bragged about how well he knows our OS...
  • Comment On OUCH! (unregistered)

    FWIW, "The system is rebooted" is an artifact of translation from Korean by a person unfamiliar with English grammar.

    Korean makes no distinction between the present and future tense, so 'the system is rebooted' and 'the system will be rebooted' are both in the non-past tense.

  • WWII Historian (unregistered) in reply to Comment On OUCH!
    Comment On OUCH!:
    FWIW, "The system is rebooted" is an artifact of translation from Korean by a person unfamiliar with English grammar.

    Korean makes no distinction between the present and future tense, so 'the system is rebooted' and 'the system will be rebooted' are both in the non-past tense.

    That must have made Douglas McArthur's famous statement extremely confusing to them.

  • neminem (unregistered) in reply to sheldon
    sheldon:
    Which version of Windows was it? I used various versions for years and not once have I seen a shutdown counter I couldn't turn off.
    I have. It was, as previously mentioned, caused by a well-known virus - Blaster, I believe. I've never seen one you couldn't turn off as the result of normal use, though.

    I have seen Dan's complaint, though, with updates that allow you to stop them from rebooting if you notice the popup during the minute or so it's up. That is one of the first things I disable on a new Windows install, along with the hidden setting to not have it pop up a new dialog asking if you want to reboot now (how about now? Now?) every couple minutes. That dialog is certainly among the many WTFs of Windows, but at least you can get rid of it if you dig.

  • WWIII Historian (unregistered) in reply to WWII Historian
    WWII Historian:
    Comment On OUCH!:
    FWIW, "The system is rebooted" is an artifact of translation from Korean by a person unfamiliar with English grammar.

    Korean makes no distinction between the present and future tense, so 'the system is rebooted' and 'the system will be rebooted' are both in the non-past tense.

    That must have made Douglas McArthur's famous statement extremely confusing to them.
    Scratching head wondering what all those Koreans were doing in the Philippines in 1942.

    Though now checking Wikipedia he said it in Australia, not the Philippines, and Wikipedia is never wrong. For long.

  • (cs) in reply to Ken B.
    Ken B.:
    PeriSoft:
    Last night I saw a truncated forum comment title which read, unfortunately, "...mounting block with the braided ho". Hmm...
    Even more fun (FSVO) are company credit cards for "[elided] Computer Associates", which only have enough room for the first 3 characters of "Associates" on the card.

    And even that's not as good as the abbreviated truncated receipt my grocery store prints for Land O' Lakes Spreadable Butter - it comes through as "SPREAD BUTT". I'm not sure if it was an automated system with a bad result, or someone being snarky, but it's always fun to be checking out and have the big info display say, "SPREAD BUTT" to everyone in line behind you.

  • The Judge 2 (unregistered) in reply to The Judge
    The Judge:
    bluesman:
    Son of the Dancing Pigeon:
    An oversized ass? Is that an American toy store?

    Yep: Toys'reass

    I DEMAND THAT THIS BE MADE A FEATURED COMMENT.

    I demand that all The Judge's comments be made featured comments.

  • Christopher (unregistered)

    Comment Line 1 Comment Line 2 Comment Line 3 Comment Line 4

  • next_ghost (unregistered) in reply to anon
    anon:
    Ralph:
    Oh you mean Windows. Once I had spent more than 24 hours rendering an animation. It was almost done when I got this nice popup "Rebooting in 5 minutes, screw you loser..." and no way to stop it.
    You realize that this is, if not initiated by your helpful networt admin, a big red warning sign. Usually, this tells you that a really important component of the OS just up and died (winlogon is the usual suspect). It doesn't do that on it's own. This is a sign of a malware infection or flaky hardware. Windows had nothing to do with it, and a shutdown was, in fact the only sensible way to go.

    Actually, if you happen to be using a user account with limited privileges while Windows installs an automatic update which initiates reboot, you're stuck with no way to cancel that reboot.

  • next_ghost (unregistered) in reply to Silfax
    Silfax:
    Depends on what you are updating. Some system components will require a reboot on any os.

    Ever heard of kexec and ksplice?

  • gizmore (unregistered)

    The update is completed. Reboot imminent. Resistance is futile.

    Captcha: consequat

  • db (unregistered) in reply to Jack
    Jack:
    pnieuwkamp:
    Is it, or isn't it going to reboot? I rebooted a production server like this once, unannounced...

    Computer: "You should reboot! [Finish]" Me: "Ok, I'll schedule it" clicks Finish Computer: "brb"

    That's very odd. So it behaved differently on your identically configured production system than when you installed it in QA???

    Sounds like you were the WTF that day...

    There's different sorts of production ranging from "have a cup of coffee Jenny because you can't do any data entry for five minutes" to "OMFG the line has stopped and the hot steel rod is burning the expensive coating off the rollers".

  • Dr. FuBar (unregistered) in reply to db
    db:
    There's different sorts of production ranging from "have a cup of coffee Jenny because you can't do any data entry for five minutes" to "OMFG the line has stopped and the hot steel rod is burning the expensive coating off the rollers".
    ... to "Why has that patient's IV pump stopped pumping and the alarm didn't go off?"

    Though around here a patient's life is valued at the equivalent of $5M** by the actuarians; maybe the coatings on the rollers in the steel plant actually cost more to fix!?

    **$5M: I'm not from the US; it probably costs 10x that much there because of "deep pockets" lawsuits.

  • Morten (unregistered) in reply to frits
    frits:
    I'm not a number, I'm a free man!

    Hey frits, what's your IP?

  • ik (unregistered)

    Oh, I've seen that Samsung ODD (Optical Disc Drive) firmware update program. It's totally written in Korean Engrish. It took me a long time to find out that when it says "a program" it really means "this program".

  • (cs) in reply to next_ghost
    next_ghost:
    Silfax:
    Depends on what you are updating. Some system components will require a reboot on any os.
    Ever heard of kexec and ksplice?
    How do they help if you've got a libc update to apply? I suppose that in theory it's applicable without a reboot, but in practice you've got problems because everything's got it in use and isn't coded to relinquish and regrab.

    Kernel updates are much easier curiously because the kernel isn't tightly bound into nearly so many things.

  • next_ghost (unregistered) in reply to dkf
    dkf:
    How do they help if you've got a libc update to apply? I suppose that in theory it's applicable without a reboot, but in practice you've got problems because everything's got it in use and isn't coded to relinquish and regrab.

    All you have to do is reload all services. That's basically a complete userspace reboot without actually rebooting. And thanks to the wonderful fork/exec combo, network services can do full reload literally in the middle of transmission without the user noticing anything.

    Kernel updates are much easier curiously because the kernel isn't tightly bound into nearly so many things.

    That's not true. Kernel is bound into everything through libc. You can replace parts of the running kernel using ksplice but AFAIK you can't reload the kernel without killing the entire userspace. kexec speeds up the reboot procedure by skipping BIOS initialization and bootloader but it still has to reinitialize userspace from scratch.

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