Bonum Certa Men Certa

Reboots Should Never be Necessary

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jul 14, 2025,
updated Jul 15, 2025

happy birthday, netbsd!

Good, solid, reliable systems should be designed to maximise uptime (without compromising aspects such as security). That means they ought to minimise a repeated "need" (or supposed requirement) to bootstrap over and over again. That isn't technically infeasible.

At the moment we have three machines here with an uptime of around 500 days and more. They're not reachable from the outside world, except if someone does something to them through the browser (which they themselves access), malicious attachment in E-mail, and so on. My main laptop will exceed 2 years' uptime a few months from now:

$ uptime
 20:55:14 up 644 days,  2:40, 38 users,  load average: 0.79, 0.69, 0.56

To me, each reboot represents some kind of failure. I still patch the software by the way.

Earlier today I rebooted one other machine, which is neither primary nor secondary. It was already chronically low on RAM, I assume due to accumulation of memory leaks. They add up. What really should have taken about 5 minutes (at most) took almost half an hour because the HDMI "cable" (they're computers shaped like cables) decided to throw tantrums. It's not the first time a reboot over here caused monitor-related perils. HDMI is, after all, just a DRM carrier. Then, restoring the session (about a dozen windows) took quite some time. Connecting to other machines and running things on them demands a lot of manual work. So it's hard to imagine having to do this every week. It would severely harm productivity.

The idea that reboots are "normal" was 'popularised' (people meant to assume this was acceptable) by Windows. Prior to the 90s, as homes did not have Internet access, it was common to power off the PC while it wasn't in use. So reboots weren't yet "a thing".

Years ago I complained that IBM's design was rather bad; when installing Flatpak support the user would be expected to then reboot the PC. Why? Whose idea was this? There must be another way.

Society already wastes a lot of money and time on worthless "apps" and other supposedly 'modern' nonsense. Need we also expect everyone to reboot machines and try to restore sessions, lessening not only productivity but also reliability?

"BUT WHAT ABOUT SECURITY!!"

Yes, security. That's what they always tell us. The vast majority of computers aren't servers and don't sit there on the Net with a publicly- or world-facing IP address. They're not multi-user, either. This means that patching one's browser is mostly enough for most computers (also, browsers are pressured to do much more than render pages; that's wrong and leads to hidden dangers).

I regularly update my Net-facing machines, but there are only two such machines. For machines used to do work it would be risky to constantly make changes at every level.

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

The Grapevine Says IBM's American RAs (Mass Layoffs) Soon to Follow European RAs, PIPs and "Reviews" as Pretext for a Likely Baseless Dismissal
The days of honourable corporations and work ethics are long gone it seems...
Links 23/01/2026: Growing Censorship, Intel Falls (Another Bubble, Propped Up by Cheeto Bailout), and Huge GAFAM Layoffs Continue
Links for the day
Working for Freedom Makes You a Target
it's not about what you do but about who gets served
Claim That IBM Mass Layoffs Began Again in Europe, With Rumours It'll Close Offices
Unless IBM issues a statement (admission) to the media or issues WARN notices (in the US), the lousy media will simply assume - however wrongly - that nothing is happening and there's nothing to report
 
Projection Tactics - Part IV: SLAPP by Americans Against Techrights (UK) to Hide Serious Abuses Against American Women
"PRs need to stop being complicit in suppression of information via SLAPPs"
Illegal, Unconstitutional Kangaroo Court for Patents Drops the Masks, Shows Its Real Purpose is to Serve Multinational Monopolists and Crush European SMEs
Europe (or the EU) is rapidly becoming a corporate project, not a unified governance initiative
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part X - EPO Strikes to Begin Next Week
Things gradually escalate this month
Gemini Links 24/01/2026: Snow, Boxing, and Lisp is Fun
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, January 23, 2026
IRC logs for Friday, January 23, 2026
Senior management and HR email privacy: Martin Ebnoether (venty), Axel Beckert (xtaran) & Debian abuse in Switzerland
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Pierre-Elliott Bécue, ANSSI & Debian cybertorture
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
MJ Ray, Micah Anderson & Debian on drugs, prostitution at DebConf6 fight
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Excellence in Ethics: a list of victories for the truth
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Richard Stallman Giving Public Talk, Answering Questions From the Audience
We understand (from the organisers) that there will be a video of the talk
Forbes Covers in 2026 What Was Already Clear for Over a Decade: Microsoft's BitLocker 'Encryption' is a Back Door
One that's promoted by the loudest boosters of UEFI 'secure boot' as well
Links 23/01/2026: Minus 24 deg C in South Korea, "Iran Internet Blackout Passes Two-Week Mark"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 23/01/2026: "Witch Watch" and English on the Net
Links for the day
Reminder That "Linux" in the Site's Name (and Domain) Does Not Imply Authentic Journalism About GNU/Linux
the sad fact that some once-legitimate sites became slopfarms
Further Comments Illuminate Observations Regarding IBM's Layoffs (RAs) Plan for Europe
Some shed light on the expected scale
Appeasing Bullies Doesn't Work
The reason we're still here and very active is that we're good at what we do
How Microsoft Will Tell Shareholders That the Business is Failing in a Few Days
It'll resort to "AI" storytelling (lying about slop having potential for some unspecified future year)
Flying to See Today's Talk by Richard Stallman
It's probably not too late to reserve a seat for today's talk
The Fall of Freenode Didn't Kill IRC and the Web's Issues (Not Limited to LLM Slop) Didn't Kill Everything
As long as there are enough people willing to keep the simple (or "old") stuff it'll refuse to die
GAFAM Layoffs by Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs) Hide the Real Scale of Their Financial Troubles
the "official" numbers of layoffs will never tell the true story
'Domesticated' Animals Not More Valuable Than Free-range Wildlife, Proprietary ('Commercial') Software Isn't Better Than Free Software
the proprietary software giants (companies like SAP or Microsoft) have a lot of lobbyists
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part IX - EPO Budget Funnelled Into Cocaine and Moreover Rewards Cocaine-Addicted Management for Getting Busted by Police
Any day that passes without European media and European politicians doing anything about it merely discredits the media and the EU (or national governments)
Richard Stallman Won't Talk About "AI", He'll Talk About Chatbots and LLMs Lacking Any Intelligence
This really irritates people who dislike the message; so they attack the person
Slopfarms Still Fed by Google, Boosting Fake 'Articles' That Pretend to Cover "Linux"
At this point about 80-90% of the search results appear not to be slopfarms
Gemini Links 23/01/2026: The Danish Approach to Deepfakes and Random vi Things
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, January 22, 2026
IRC logs for Thursday, January 22, 2026
Five Years Ago, After We Broke the Story About Richard Stallman Rejoining the FSF's Board, All Hell Broke Loose (for Me and My Family)
They generally seem to target anyone who thinks Richard Stallman (RMS) should be in charge or thinks alike about computing
Links 22/01/2026: Slop Fantasy About Patents, Retirement in China Now Reached at Age Seventy
Links for the day
Gemini Links 22/01/2026: Why Europe Does Not Need GAFAMs, XScreenSaver Tinkering, FlatCube
Links for the day
Salvadorans' Usage of GNU/Linux Measured at Record Levels
All-time high
Links 22/01/2026: Ubisoft Layoffs Disguised as "RTO", US "Congress Wants To Hand Your Parenting To GAFAM", Americans' Image Tarnished Among Canadians (Now Planning to "Repel US Invasion")
Links for the day
10 Easy Steps to Follow for Digital Sovereignty in Nations That Distrust GAFAM et al
When "enough is enough"
No, the Problem at IBM/Red Hat Isn't Diversity
Microsoft Lunduke also openly shows his admiration for Pedo Cheeto
Do Not Link to Linuxiac Anymore, Linuxiac Became a Slopfarm
now Linuxiac is slop
Dr. Andy Farnell Explains Why Slop Companies Like Anthropic and Microsoft 'Open' 'AI' Basically Plunder and Rob People
This article was published last night at around 10
Richard Stallman (RMS) at Georgia Tech Tomorrow
After the talk we'll write a lot about "cancel culture" and online mobs fostered and emboldened in social control media
Software Patents by Any Other Name
There is no such thing as "AI" patents
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, January 21, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, January 21, 2026
The "Alicante Mafia" - Part VIII - Salary Cuts to Staff, 100,000 Euros to Managers Busted Using Cocaine (for Doing Absolutely Nothing, Just Pretending to be "Sick")
Today we look at slides from the union
Gemini Links 22/01/2026: Forest Monk, Aurora Observation, and Arduino Officially Launches the More Powerful Arduino UNO Q 4GB Single-Board Computer
Links for the day
Next Week is Close Enough for Wall Street Storytelling About 'Efficiency' by Layoffs for "AI"
This coming week GAFAM and others will tell some creative tales about how "AI" something something...
Google News Still a Feeder of Slop About "Linux", Which Became Rarer in 2026
Our main concern these days is what happened to Linuxiac. Bobby Borisov became a chatbots addict.