• terminhell@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    To this day, I still don’t understand what takes windows updates so dam long. Not sure about Mac, but Linux takes, what, 5 minutes at most if you’ve gone a while.

    • Espi@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      This is a byproduct of one of the largest and more ignored differences between windows and linux. The fact that Linux let’s you modify files while they are open whereas windows doesn’t.

      This means that you can update a linux system by just replacing the files with the new ones while it runs. On the other side, Windows can’t modify its own files while it runs, so instead it has a second entire OS to update itself, and requires a reboot to unload all the files and boot from the updater without locking windows files.

      • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        In some sense this would even seem an advantage of Windows. (I know it’s the fundamental reason for many hangs and freezes, but the idea that a file is a lockable resource doesn’t seem that bad.)

        • uis@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          There is flock/fcntl for you. But locking is bad for performance too, especially in multithreaded enviroments.

        • Espi@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I think files being locked is really intuitive, which greatly helps new users. Allowing files to be modified or deleted while they are open makes it really easy to shoot yourself in the foot. For example in the video of Linus switching to Linux he was uncompressing a file and tried to open it while it was still uncompressing, which failed since the file wasn’t complete. He didn’t understand why the file wasnt uncompressing correctly. That can’t happen on Windows, since the file being uncompressed would be locked.

          I think there should be a ‘lockable mode’, and for distributions oriented to new users the home directory should be mounted like that.

          • uis@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            There IS ‘lockable mode’ since System V era. It is extensively used by package managers and similar stuff.

            Deleting file does not actually deletes it from disk until last program closes it. And there are ways to open file such that changes to file will not be seen in program.

            • Espi@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Yeah with “lockable mode” I mean locking by default instead of requiring every program to specifically call for locking.

              It would probably break lots of software, but only using such mode for the users home (or maybe even specific Downloads/documents/desktop/etc folders within the home directory) could reduce the impact.

              [Edit] wait I think there is whole fs locking mode on mounting, with the “mand” option, going to test it.

        • Espi@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          No, silverblue does all the work before you restart the computer, and the actual work doesn’t involve replacing the OS itself but basically downloading some files and just checking a different git branch when booting.

    • herrvogel@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Mac updates are less frequent but take longer. They also restart the machine. One difference though is that my mac never took it upon itself to start an update without asking my opinion.

      • macniel@feddit.de
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        1 year ago

        /laughs in company enforced updates/

        First they nag you. Then they nag even more. Then they blur out everything making your system unusable unless you hit update.

        • kamenLady.@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          And it’s all done with style, looking good while closing in on ya

          Edit: you seem to have a pair of spare / /

          May i borrow them?

          I somehow lost mine.

          ¯_(ツ)_¯

        • Cysioland@lemmygrad.ml
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          1 year ago

          One company I worked at had a weird customization for both Windows and Dell UEFI updates, and this shit was super intrusive, basically you could skip it only once, and then it’d count down to the update even if you’re on an important Teams meeting

    • uis@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Very true for mainstream distros, but there’s more: Linux updates in the background. No matter how long it takes(if you for example use Gentoo), there is zero downtime. And with kexec your system can be its own bootloader and can do insane stuff like starting new kernel without re-running POST, which is on servers is very important(because they have shitty BIOS that takes ages to boot).

    • sebsch@discuss.tchncs.de
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      1 year ago

      They have no packages but do a full patch of the system data. Since this is the most complex approach and almost everything can go wrong down to the core they spend most of the time with checking and cleaning state.

    • nixcamic@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Sometimes I won’t use Tumbleweed for a few months then boot it up and it will update every package on the system (literally full reinstall of the os and all installed software) faster than Windows can search for updates. What the heck?

    • brb@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      Can’t remember a windows update taking longer than 5 minutes. And even if it did take that long, you can just press “update and shutdown” when you stop using the pc. Windows has a lot of problems but this isn’t one of them.

      • Catsrules@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        A lot of it happens in the backgound. It is at least a 15-30 minute process from start to finish. Very annoying if you have an older computer as it is sucks up a lot of resources updating during the background updates.

        I normally don’t ever shutdown or restart my desktop. I like leaving program and stuff running so I can continue what I am doing when I get back. With an update I have to close out all of my shit and then shutdown and open everything back up.

        I also swear when you have updates pending on a restart the computer doesn’t run very well.

        • brb@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          I see now. I have pretty beefy computer so I haven’t noticed that. I also shutdown my computer every night so it’s still not problem for me.

          • terminhell@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            1 year ago

            Another issue is that windows will eventually force a reboot on you with pending updates. You can postpone it for a while, but eventually you’ll be in the middle of something and it will just do it anyways.

            • pirat@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              This is, in some regards, similar to rape…

              Edit: to clarify,

              Another issue is that windows a predatory person will eventually force a reboot on rape you with pending updates upknocking. You can sometimes postpone it for a while, but eventually you’ll be in the middle of something and it they will just do it anyways.

              Hopefully, we’ll agree that rape is much worse, but the underlying principle is the same: some entity abuses something you own - your body/property. Since you’re the owner, you exclusively should be in control.

              Unfortunately, it can sometimes be necessary to leave an abusive partner/OS. This can be challenging if you “need” one but they’re all evil and dominating. M$ is not abusing its users as violently as some people are abusing their partners. However, their subtle abuse of their users takes place on a much bigger scale. Not only in this (pretty unimportant) regard, but also by e.g. unwanted telemetry/tracking. Luckily, non-abusive partners of the Linux family are becoming easier to find and date, and many are already flirting with one or more of them.

      • ShouldIHaveFun@feddit.ch
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        1 year ago

        If your computer is always running it may never take longer than five minutes. But try to leave your computer shut down for a month or more. Then updates accumulate and it can take really long to make them.