__/ [flatfish] on Monday 06 February 2006 22:58 \__
> On Mon, 06 Feb 2006 04:07:30 +0000, Roy Schestowitz wrote:
>
>
>> I am guessing that the last thing the OP needs are kernel updates the
>> happen in the background (without user intervention) and then require a
>> reboot. I am not sure a cron job would handle such a job either. I agree,
>> however, that for servers, need for update could require automation, which
>> leaves the machine independent and self-maintaining. See command-line SuSE
>> watcher (susewatcher) and YaST on-line update. They might be scriptable.
>>
>> Roy
>
> Actually it's worse than a reboot.
> If the user is using lilo, does a kernel update and does not run
> /sbin/lilo before shutting down the system won't boot the next time up.
>
> Automatic updates are silly IMHO.
> Someone should review them, let others be the test cases and then
> carefuuly apply only what's really needed rather than just mass applying
> patches automatically.
>
> This is especially true of Suse which has braindead versions of multimedia
> programs which the smart people have upgraded via packman etc to real
> fully functional versions.
> Allow Yast to update these programs and you might be right back with an
> upgraded brain dead Suse version of the program.
This might be acceptable though. It all depends on what job the machine is
assigned to take care of. I guess it's unacceptable for a Web/mail servers,
but quite all right for personal machines or computational servers, which
might be temporarily unavailable at worst of circumstances.
I don't think that multimedia is a big issue. User reviewers would often fail
to spot inconsistencies as most users (me included) tend to take the
highway, just clicking their way through an update as quickly as possible.
Needs regular backups though...
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz
http://Schestowitz.com | SuSE Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
6:10am up 21 days 1:26, 11 users, load average: 0.16, 0.32, 0.47
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