Bookworm prompts freqently, sometimes daily, that updates are available.
If I click the install button the machine does its gymnastics and says everything is up to date. At least outwardly, no change is apparent.

Somewhere around noon the next day I _do_ notice changes. Usually
it's in the form of some mischief; YouTube stops working right,
WiFi stops working right, something like that. Occasionally, an
existing misfeature dissapears, ie, YouTube works better, etc.

Am I mistaken? At least about the overnight delay?

Somewhere I got the idea that modern Linux systems don't need to
reboot except for a kernel change. Is that correct? I've never
seen a prompt to reboot, nor an automatic reboot, on RasPiOS.

Thanks for reading,

bob prohaska



--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

bp@www.zefox.net writes:

Bookworm prompts freqently, sometimes daily, that updates are available.
If I click the install button the machine does its gymnastics and says everything is up to date. At least outwardly, no change is apparent.

Somewhere around noon the next day I _do_ notice changes. Usually
it's in the form of some mischief; YouTube stops working right,
WiFi stops working right, something like that. Occasionally, an
existing misfeature dissapears, ie, YouTube works better, etc.

Am I mistaken? At least about the overnight delay?

The update process will usually restart server processes immediately,
although AFAIK this is something each package has to do at least
somewhat independently, so presumably mistakes can happen.

Apart from that, once an update completes, new executables (and
libraries etc) are available to run immediately, but they will only
start running next time something executes them. For example if you
update Bash, existing logins will be unchanged but new logins will get
the updated shell.

There?s no time-based delay.

Somewhere I got the idea that modern Linux systems don't need to
reboot except for a kernel change. Is that correct? I've never
seen a prompt to reboot, nor an automatic reboot, on RasPiOS.

I think that?s basically right. An update to init (usually meaning
systemd now) may require a reboot before it takes fully (not sure), but
apart from that there?s very little that inherently needs a reboot.

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On 05/11/2025 03:05, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

Bookworm prompts freqently, sometimes daily, that updates are available.
If I click the install button the machine does its gymnastics and says everything is up to date. At least outwardly, no change is apparent.

Somewhere around noon the next day I_do_ notice changes. Usually
it's in the form of some mischief; YouTube stops working right,
WiFi stops working right, something like that. Occasionally, an
existing misfeature dissapears, ie, YouTube works better, etc.

Am I mistaken? At least about the overnight delay?

Somewhere I got the idea that modern Linux systems don't need to
reboot except for a kernel change. Is that correct? I've never
seen a prompt to reboot, nor an automatic reboot, on RasPiOS.

In general you dont need to reboot, but you may need to restart some applications Firefox doesn't upgrade in place nicely, for example...


--
You can get much farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a
kind word alone.

Al Capone




--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

On Wed, 5 Nov 2025 03:05:57 -0000 (UTC), bp wrote:

Somewhere I got the idea that modern Linux systems don't need to
reboot except for a kernel change.

Almost. But there is at least one core library, the C runtime, that is
linked into just about every process that runs. So an update to that
library requires those processes to restart.

It?s likely those service restarts happened without you noticing.

Is that correct? I've never seen a prompt to reboot, nor an
automatic reboot, on RasPiOS.

Greg Kroah-Hartman, ?Mr Linux Device Drivers?, has said <https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-linux-security-team-issues-60-cves-a-week-but-dont-stress-do-this-instead/>
that running the latest securely-patched stable kernel (important on public-facing servers, for example) would mean a kernel update just
about every week.

--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

druck <news@druck.org.uk> wrote:

On 05/11/2025 03:05, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

Bookworm prompts freqently, sometimes daily, that updates are available.
If I click the install button the machine does its gymnastics and says
everything is up to date. At least outwardly, no change is apparent.

Somewhere around noon the next day I _do_ notice changes. Usually
it's in the form of some mischief; YouTube stops working right,
WiFi stops working right, something like that. Occasionally, an
existing misfeature dissapears, ie, YouTube works better, etc.

Am I mistaken? At least about the overnight delay?

The Pixel desktop updater works in the background downloading and
applying the changes. Unless you have not done an update many months it should only take a couple of minutes, except if your WiFi is
exceptionally slow.

As a rule, the system(s) report "system is up to date" within a
few minutes. One of them is a Pi5 with wired ethernet. the other
is a Pi2 on WiFi.

How long might it take for services to restart
after that point on the machine with wired ethernet?

Thanks for writing,

bob prohaska


--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)

bp@www.zefox.net writes:

druck <news@druck.org.uk> wrote:

On 05/11/2025 03:05, bp@www.zefox.net wrote:

Bookworm prompts freqently, sometimes daily, that updates are available. >>> If I click the install button the machine does its gymnastics and says
everything is up to date. At least outwardly, no change is apparent.

Somewhere around noon the next day I _do_ notice changes. Usually
it's in the form of some mischief; YouTube stops working right,
WiFi stops working right, something like that. Occasionally, an
existing misfeature dissapears, ie, YouTube works better, etc.

Am I mistaken? At least about the overnight delay?

The Pixel desktop updater works in the background downloading and
applying the changes. Unless you have not done an update many months
it should only take a couple of minutes, except if your WiFi is
exceptionally slow.

As a rule, the system(s) report "system is up to date" within a
few minutes. One of them is a Pi5 with wired ethernet. the other
is a Pi2 on WiFi.

How long might it take for services to restart
after that point on the machine with wired ethernet?

They are restarted during the upgrade. If you are getting ?system is up
to date? then the process has finished.

--
https://www.greenend.org.uk/rjk/

--- PyGate Linux v1.5
* Origin: Dragon's Lair, PyGate NNTP<>Fido Gate (3:633/10)