On Tue, Jun 06, 2000 at 01:32:34PM -0500, Ashley Clark wrote: > * Brian Stults in "what upgrades require reboot?" dated 2000/06/06 14:00 > wrote: > > > I am curious about when you need to reboot after upgrading packages. I > > assume if I upgrade a package like gnome-libs, I should restart gnome > > but it won't require rebooting. On the other hand, I assume that > > upgrading packages like bash and libc will require a reboot. Is that > > true? How can I know when I should reboot or not? > > The only package I can think of that would require a reboot is the > kernel-image packages. With Linux all user-space programs are just > that, user-space, meaning that stopping and starting them is enough, no > reboot required. Things that would be kernel-space are things like > filesystem drivers, raid support in the kernel, &c. Unfortunately MS > has tainted people's views of just what exactly an operating system is > and contains and requires reboots for the simplest things (ahem, > network configuration)! >
A major revision in the C library may require a reboot (for example due to the wtmp format changing). A minor change in C library hardly ever requires reboot. And a major change in X will go far smoother if you restart X (not necessarily reboot), and this is due mostly to memory issues. In any case, reboots should be due almost always to "changed the kernel", and only once in a blue moon to other things. If the package developer does not specifically tell you to reboot, you may assume it is safe not to. Jim
