Grant Edwards wrote:
> I've got a couple Gentoo machines that normally run 24/7. I've
> learned over the years that it's a good idea to reboot them
> occasionally (when I have some spare time and I know they're idle)
> just to make they still can.
>
> I've settled on roughly once a month or so.
>
> What seems to happen if I don't do this is that some update (or
> perhaps just a stupid configuration mistake on my part) will render
> the machine non-bootable, and I won't discover it until several months
> later at the worst possible moment when I'm in the middle of something
> urgent and the power fails, or I type "reboot" into the wrong xterm,
> or whatever. Or maybe those things don't happen to other people...
>
I reboot when the power fails. That is the number one reason that I
reboot. The only other reason, adding a hard drive or something like
that. Heck, I don't cut it off when I'm blowing out the dust. I used
to reboot when I did a kernel update but even that isn't very often.
Generally, I'll build a new kernel and then select it when I reboot,
which may be months. I keep my older known to work kernels around in
case the new kernel goes wonky. Little info since I built this rig a
few years ago.
root@fireball / # uprecords
# Uptime | System
Boot up
----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------
1 193 days, 09:28:37 | Linux 3.5.3-gentoo Sat Sep 22
07:50:38 2012
2 184 days, 15:47:57 | Linux 3.18.7-gentoo Tue Dec 15
21:53:59 2015
3 116 days, 16:24:24 | Linux 3.16.3-gentoo Mon Oct 13
20:27:52 2014
4 111 days, 00:34:49 | Linux 3.18.7-gentoo Tue Mar 31
18:57:19 2015
5 101 days, 18:34:17 | Linux 3.5.3-gentoo Wed Dec 31
18:00:00 1969
-> 6 98 days, 20:55:12 | Linux 4.5.2-gentoo Sun Oct 23
20:09:26 2016
7 83 days, 02:15:38 | Linux 3.18.7-gentoo Wed Sep 23
19:50:20 2015
8 72 days, 12:03:16 | Linux 3.9.5-gentoo Sat Jul 13
19:11:24 2013
9 69 days, 00:44:23 | Linux 3.11.6-gentoo Mon Jan 6
03:33:34 2014
10 67 days, 09:29:07 | Linux 4.5.2-gentoo Wed Aug 17
10:38:08 2016
----------------------------+---------------------------------------------------
1up in 2 days, 21:39:06 | at Thu Feb 2
13:43:44 2017
no1 in 94 days, 12:33:26 | at Fri May 5
05:38:04 2017
up 1694 days, 09:23:14 | since Wed Dec 31
18:00:00 1969
down 15502 days, 12:41:2 | since Wed Dec 31
18:00:00 1969
%up 9.853 | since Wed Dec 31
18:00:00 1969
root@fireball / #
Ignore the down part. When I first booted, the clock was set to the
default which was ages ago. When I reset the clock, it got weird. I
have no clue how or if I can fix that.
Now that I'm basically forced to have a init thingy, that is a
additional reason not to reboot. In the past, another distro, the init
thingy would break and I couldn't boot. I despise having to have a init
thingy. If I ever replace the hard drive that has my OS with a SSD or
something, the separate /usr is gone. Maybe I can ditch the init thingy
at that point.
That's my info. Maybe it will give you something to think about.
Dale
:-) :-)
