Aren't upgrades demanding too much restarts?

[Andre Costa]

On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 21:59, kalinix <calin.kalinix.cosma at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, 2010-08-31 at 21:43 -0300, Andre Costa wrote:
>> On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 20:17, Patrick O'Callaghan
>> <pocallaghan at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > On Tue, 2010-08-31 at 19:17 -0300, Andre Costa wrote:
>> >> Isn't there any more clever way of determining if a reboot is really
>> >> necessary? Or maybe at least the message should be less "demanding", I
>> >> don't know... it really seems unneeded.
>> >
>> > needs-restarting ("yum install yum-utils" if you don't have it). This
>> > will catch everything except the kernel, but that one is obvious.
>>
>> That's nice, I didn't know needs-restarting, it will definitely be
>> useful (it is installed). Thks =)
>>
>> Still, my point is: this kind of check should be handled automatically
>> by the upgrade process, and the user should only be asked to reboot if
>> there's *really* need to do so. Eg. right now, after those two
>> upgrades I mentioned, that read "reboot me!" icon is sitting on my
>> notification panel, but if I run 'needs-restarting' this is what I
>> get:
>>
>> 3478 : /usr/libexec/clock-applet--oaf-activate-iid=OAFIID:GNOME_ClockApplet_Factory--oaf-ior-fd=42
>> 3484 : /usr/sbin/restorecond-u
>> 3501 : pidgin
>>
>> Aside from restorecond, it's obvious I don't need to restart because
>> clock-applet and pidgin were upgraded... :-/ (and even restorecond
>> might not require a reboot).
>>
>> Andre
>
> Andre, I think needs-restarting means those applications need to be
> restarted, not you need to restart the whole system to update those
> applications.

Yes, that's what I understood as well. This is what I tried to
evidence with my example.

> As well as 'reboot me' should means exactly that: reboot that particular
> application.

Exactly. These userspace apps should be restated automatically after
the upgrade, without bothering the user with a "reboot your computer
to make sure any changes will be applied" warning.

> I never ever saw a linux system which has to be rebooted in order to
> update pidgin.

Amen. If it ever happens, it will be time to move on to something else... ;-)

Andre