A Look At The Most Promising Next-Gen Linux Software Update Mechanisms

[sdack]

As a commercial enterprise, Red Hat is worrying about the 1% of updates that do screw up. In order to make it bullet proof, they perform the update in a special pre-boot environment, since reboots only happen at scheduled maintenance. Desktop users are OK with something that works 99% of the time, so this doesn't apply to them.

Nonsense. Being commercial doesn't make you worry more than anybody else. If anything does it mean you care less about the product and more about the money and the commerce.

The problem isn't that reboots are bad (although they can be bad for hardware and software), but it is unnecessary for most of the updates and invite laziness. Commercial enterprises as you call them do have the tendency to take shortcuts in order to get to their commercial goals, which is why still today Windows requires reboots for many of its updates. Microsoft simply never cared for it more than they felt they have to. It's the attitude, which needs to be fought here.

Before you disagree, better explain why OSTree needs reboots and Swupd doesn't.

[starshipeleven]

"... similar to OSTree but does not require reboots to activate bundles."

I am beginning to wonder about RedHat's management when I read that they are in support of this. Call APT old, but not needing to reboot for 99% of all updates has always been a big win for me. I hate how Windows always wants to reboot and forces people to close running applications, to log back in and to start over. And here we have RedHat supporting just this kind of crap.

Apt isn't atomic, and yes it does fuck up sometimes.
read here the proposed usecase (servers, not consumer PCs, because RedHat's bread and butter are servers) https://github.com/cockpit-project/c...-OSTree-Update

[F.Ultra]

Nonsense. Being commercial doesn't make you worry more than anybody else. If anything does it mean you care less about the product and more about the money and the commerce.

The problem isn't that reboots are bad (although they can be bad for hardware and software), but it is unnecessary for most of the updates and invite laziness. Commercial enterprises as you call them do have the tendency to take shortcuts in order to get to their commercial goals, which is why still today Windows requires reboots for many of its updates. Microsoft simply never cared for it more than they felt they have to. It's the attitude, which needs to be fought here.

Before you disagree, better explain why OSTree needs reboots and Swupd doesn't.

Windows requires reboots since it's impossible to overwrite a .exe that is running or a .dll that is used by a running application on Windows. That Red Hat does pre-boot updates to be 100% sure that the update is atomic is due to the Commercial Enterprises that pay Red Hat big bucks to have a single and certified platform to run and to write software for.

[sdack]

Apt isn't atomic, and yes it does fuck up sometimes.
read here the proposed usecase (servers, not consumer PCs, because RedHat's bread and butter are servers) https://github.com/cockpit-project/c...-OSTree-Update

Just horrible! The fact that "Rollback and Reboot" is shown as a single option makes me shiver. The user shouldn't be given the option (to reboot) at all when working with system updates. Only the updates themselves should decide if a reboot is required and only then inform the user of the need for a reboot and do so in a way that makes it the exception to the rule.

However offering reboot as some kind of a feature to cure problems is just the kind of dumbness the IT has been trying to get away from for decades. This crap gets us back to square one. You want to reboot your machine anyway? Then press the button or run an init 6, but don't make it a feature of a rollback.

RedHat may be a server company and this is how they get their breed and butter, but the update model is apparently more targeted towards desktop users than to system admins. Or tell me what do you do when the "rollback and reboot"-button didn't solve the problem? Because this is the situation where desktops users need the help of the system admin. Don't think a new update software will make all problems disappear. It can make old problems disappear, but will give you new problems.

And stop thinking APT would somehow be worse. Any package manager can be broken by bad packages. APT has to manage hundreds of thousands of packages these days. It didn't get their without having to solve the occasional problem.

[sdack]

Windows requires reboots since it's impossible to overwrite a .exe that is running or a .dll that is used by a running application on Windows. That Red Hat does pre-boot updates to be 100% sure that the update is atomic is due to the Commercial Enterprises that pay Red Hat big bucks to have a single and certified platform to run and to write software for.

Or perhaps RedHat has become just as incapable as Microsoft. Ever thought about that?

[tessio]

"... similar to OSTree but does not require reboots to activate bundles."

I am beginning to wonder about RedHat's management when I read that they are in support of this. Call APT old, but not needing to reboot for 99% of all updates has always been a big win for me. I hate how Windows always wants to reboot and forces people to close running applications, to log back in and to start over. And here we have RedHat supporting just this kind of crap.

My picture of RedHat is changing and I'm hoping M$ is going to buy them up. I bet RedHat's management would be excited about the takeover and make them feel like a reboot.

There is why it is used in project atomic, not Fedora/RHEL workstation. Try to think before writing whatever comes to you head.

[sdack]

There is why it is used in project atomic, not Fedora/RHEL workstation. Try to think before writing whatever comes to you head.

Is this where you fail at? Because I don't see what your comment has to do with mine. You must be thinking of something else but decided to post it as a response to my comment anyway. *lol*

[pal666]

Newer != better

i understand you are writing this from slackware 1.0 host?

[pal666]

I am beginning to wonder about RedHat's management when I read that they are in support of this. Call APT old, but not needing to reboot for 99%

it is obvious that redhat management is smarter than you. rpm does not require reboot by itself, but some software can't survive its own reboot, so it is safer to do it in preboot environment

[pal666]

Being commercial doesn't make you worry more than anybody else.

as long as you don't try to win

Commercial enterprises as you call them do have the tendency to take shortcuts in order to get to their commercial goals, which is why still today Windows requires reboots for many of its updates.

you are certainly living in alternative universe, where redhat didn't develop kpatch