[ale] contradictions in the world of patching

[Jim Kinney]

Yeah. My work desktop in CentOS 6.4. It get updates around once a week
except for some security stuff that varies. I reboot for kernel updates
(rare) and glibc updates (really rare) but do have to log out for some
desktop updates to get picked up.

My home gear is Fedora 19. It updates with new stuff all the time. I
basically ignore most of those until I want to reboot then run the yum
update -y && reboot and go do something else for a bit.

For other systems I manage, it varies. Many work systems can't be updated
with a schedule so those get punched monthly. Wife's laptop get updated
every time she has a problem and I have to look at it. Except while she was
in grad school. I didn't mess with anything but security stuff.


On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 3:51 PM, Sparr <sparr0 at gmail.com> wrote:

> The more cutting edge software you want, the more often you'll need to
> patch it, both to fix bugs and to fix security holes. If you want to patch
> your desktop as rarely as you patch your Android device, install Debian
> Stable.
>
>
> On Thu, Oct 10, 2013 at 2:56 PM, Ron Frazier (ALE) <
> atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> I was just sitting here having the "fun" of doing the monthly ritual of
>> installing patches on my Windows laptop.  Last Tuesday was the 2nd Tuesday,
>> patch day.  There were 23 this time.  Next, I get to have the fun of
>> replicating that procedure on my other computers and vm's, which, all
>> combined, is a fair number of machines.
>>
>> Linux Mint is not much better.  Since patches are continuously released,
>> it's not uncommon for me to patch Mint every time I boot it.  If I ignore
>> either OS for a couple of months, it's not uncommon to have to install
>> almost 100 patches.
>>
>> Now, I think it's a good thing that the OS's are being kept as secure as
>> possible, assuming this is the best way we have to do this.
>>
>> Here's the contradiction I thought of.  My Android tablet NEVER gets
>> updated by Acer.  They did bump me from Honeycomb (Android 3.??) to Ice
>> Cream Sandwich (Android 4.??).  But, aside from that, as far as I know,
>> there are no updates.
>>
>> So, is it necessary to do all this patching or not?  If it is, why does
>> Android get left out in the cold?
>>
>> Any thoughts?
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>> Ron
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Sent from my Android Acer A500 tablet with bluetooth keyboard and K-9
>> Mail.
>> Please excuse my potential brevity if I'm typing on the touch screen.
>>
>> (PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
>> call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
>> mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new email messages very
>> quickly.)
>>
>> Ron Frazier
>> 770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
>> linuxdude AT techstarship.com
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>>
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-- 
-- 
James P. Kinney III
*
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at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail.
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