new kernels & rebooting

[Marko Vojinovic]

On Tue, 22 Jul 2014 16:56:00 +0530
Sudhir Khanger <sudhir at sudhirkhanger.com> wrote:
> 
> What problems one could face if I were to not reboot my system for a
> while and let it update a few kernel versions?

Well, for example, a kernel update might be due to some new severe
security exploit, and the old kernel might be vulnerable to it. Running
an old kernel on an Internet-facing system might then be a Bad Idea(tm).

In theory, for each kernel update you could look at the changelog to
see what was actually updated and why, and then decide if you need to
run the updated kernel or not. But most people typically don't want to
invest the time and effort to do that, if it's easier to just reboot
the system. These things should be decided on a case-by-case basis. :-)

HTH, :-)
Marko