From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

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


--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

[email protected] 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/
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

On 05/11/2025 03:05, [email protected] 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



--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

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.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

On 05/11/2025 03:05, [email protected] 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.

Your comment about WiFi stopping working does sound like either poor
signal strength or a hardware unreliability, updates would be
extraordinarily unlikely to affect WiFi.

Youtube is a very highly CPU intensive task even on the fastest Pi 5, so
I would suspect something wrong such as slow WiFi, lack of free memory
or CPU throttling causing issues rather than any update.

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.

Raspberry Pi OS kernels only tend to be released a couple of times a
year, so only very rarely will a reboot be required after an upgrade.

Even then it's optional, but as I do daily backups I prefer to reboot to
check the system works before the new files make it in to the backup
that night - as if I needed to wind back then I'd have to go to an
archived weekly or monthly backup copy.

---druck
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

On 05/11/2025 20:55, Lawrence D’Oliveiro wrote:

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 doesn't require them to restart, but things that can restart without
user intervention such as services are usually set to do so.
Applications in use generally don't insist on restarting, with the
notable exception of Firefox.

The update process will delete the old executables and shared libraries
and replace them with updated copies which are used when programs are
next run. Anything already running will cause the deleted files to still
exist unlinked on the storage until they are closed and the space given
back to the system.

---druck
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

On Wed, 5 Nov 2025 21:34:14 +0000, druck wrote:

It doesn't require them to restart ...

You don’t get the effect of the update until they do. Just as you don’t get the effect of the new kernel until it, too, (re)boots.
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

druck <[email protected]> wrote:

On 05/11/2025 03:05, [email protected] 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

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

[email protected] writes:

druck <[email protected]> wrote:

On 05/11/2025 03:05, [email protected] 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/
--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: comp.sys.raspberry-pi

On 05/11/2025 23:57, [email protected] wrote:

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 restart as the update is taking place.

Instead of using the desktop installer, next time pop up a terminal and
do a:-

sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade -y

You'll then see all the information on what is doing going by, and when
you get the prompt back it is all done.

But as I said, something else is going wrong on your system. Is it
chronically short of memory? If so just doing an update could cause
something to be booted out of memory sometime later.

If you have that terminal still open do a:-

free -h

---druck

--- Synchronet 3.21a-Linux NewsLink 1.2