new kernels & rebooting

[Bruno Wolff III]

On Mon, Jul 21, 2014 at 06:41:05 -0400,
  Paul Cartwright <pbcartwright at gmail.com> wrote:
>Is it me, or does every other update lately seem to include a new
>kernel.. I thought linux was meant to stay up & running. I seem to be
>rebooting weekly now, just for a new kernel.  Now on:

We'll you could keep running the older kernel. Depending on what the update 
has there may not be a pressing need to switch on a particular system. 
Though updates to stable kernels are often security or data loss bugs, 
so staying on the old kernels without reviewing the changes isn't a 
great idea. And reviewing the changes would also take time and expertise. 
So for most people just rebooting at the first covenient time is going to 
make the most sense.

You might want to keep an eye on the kGraft project.
https://www.suse.com/communities/conversations/kgraft-live-kernel-patching/
https://www.suse.com/company/press/2014/1/suse-develops-kgraft-for-live-patching-of-linux-kernel.html

And Red Hat has a similar project:
http://rhelblog.redhat.com/2014/02/26/kpatch/