MX Linux Forum

Our W8 family PC is now very slow. It's hardly used so I may as well install MX17 and see if the machine can become enjoyable ....

Question is....if it remains little used.....will the system get ruined if an update is not done for weeks and weeks?

In other words, to keep the system running OK, how often must I do the updates?

Thanks

which it? windows 8 or mx17?

It can sit for weeks or months if you don't use the machine.
Just run the updates when you run the machine.

It will run fine, but if you want less bugs, and more security, run the updates when you log in.
I use synaptic. And when you run the updates, just watch that no packages are being uninstalled. If you watch that, your system will be safe.

Even if there are dozens of updates, synaptic will figure it out.

entropyfoe wrote:It can sit for weeks or months if you don't use the machine.
Just run the updates when you run the machine.

It will run fine, but if you want less bugs, and more security, run the updates when you log in.
I use synaptic. And when you run the updates, just watch that no packages are being uninstalled. If you watch that, your system will be safe.

Even if there are dozens of updates, synaptic will figure it out.

Just to be pedantic, some updates will remove packages in the normal course of an upgrade. Just watch out for mass removals. This should not happen unless you have been messing around with the repositories. We don't install any metapackages in a way that removing one metapackage will wipe out your whole desktop, which can happen with straight Debian.

I have a kitchen laptop (Lenovo refurbished) that is running MX Linux and I don't update very often...no problems.

Be aware that MX upgrades are not like Windows upgrades. I take all upgrades as they are available. I do now have a fast 100 Mb/s connection and a typical upgrade takes between 20 seconds and 3 minutes. And typically no rebooting necessary for an upgrade. The longest are kernel upgrades that need to regenerate an initrd and rebuild modules but they also do not take very long. Of course for the kernel to load you do need to reboot but the upgrade is finished, not multiple reboots as in Windows.

@ those-of-you-with-high-post-counts

My experience starting with MX-17 beta3 as a LiveUSB doing virtually every dist-upgrade as it
shows up in the green box has been 100 percent successful. I had expected this might not
always be trouble-free but am quite pleased that it has been.

Given your much longer experience with this, can you say that I should relax my uncertainty
and continue more confidently with each and every opportunity to dist-upgrade and no longer
expect some calamity or other might occur with the next dist-update offered?

TIA

In my experience yes. As long as you stick with the default repositories, avoid PPA's and do not enable other repositories without asking first. Also examine if upgrades say they will remove packages. In most cases they can be removed but if inexperienced wise to ask the "experts" first.

Yes, that was my experience,, and the reason for my comment.

The only time I ever get unpleasantly surprised is when packages are removed. As long as packages are added, I have never in hundreds of updates had any problem.

Yes Stevo, sometimes packages are removed, but as mentioned, at that point a lesser experienced person should pause and investigate or bail out and ask experts. Sometimes there is some explanation.

And the big mistake is to enable other repositories, then mass removal can be catastrophic.

You'll never get the horrendous Windows upgrade experience you'll get if you try to upgrade some install that hasn't had them for a couple years, either. No multiple reboots and endless waits while some little spinner whirls around and you're locked out of your machine. I have Win 10 on my laptop still, but I haven't booted it since December, so probably have lots of Meltdown crap from MS awaiting.

entropyfoe wrote:
And the big mistake is to enable other repositories,

Leaving the multimedia and/or test repositories enabled can cause real grief to unsuspecting users. It is acceptable to enable them briefly to download a particular
package(s) but be sure to cancel the enablement immediately afterwards.

TJ Hoye wrote:@ those-of-you-with-high-post-counts

My experience starting with MX-17 beta3 as a LiveUSB doing virtually every dist-upgrade as it
shows up in the green box has been 100 percent successful. I had expected this might not
always be trouble-free but am quite pleased that it has been.

Given your much longer experience with this, can you say that I should relax my uncertainty
and continue more confidently with each and every opportunity to dist-upgrade and no longer
expect some calamity or other might occur with the next dist-update offered?

TIA

Yes.

Since I also run a few rolling distros where there are frequent large and potentially more tumultuous updates, I really can't see the need to worry so much about Debian Stable updates. Even the so-called large updates whenever a new Debian point release comes out is not really that big in the scale of things since certain base or key packages don't get upgraded to a higher version throughout the life of a particular Debian Stable version (e.g Debian Stretch).

The only thing is to check the text output in the dialogue window to ascertain that there are no large numbers of packages being removed, before clicking on "Y" to proceed with the update. Large numbers usually indicate some serious problems.

One or two packages being removed is usually not a big deal, but you can do a common sense check in the text output by seeing if a few new packages with similar names to the removable packages are being installed concurrently with the removal. If so, it usually indicates that a new program/package has been created (ie, it's not just an update of the older package) to do the job previously done by the package being removed.

Thanks all, that gives me the confidence to install MX17 on the family machine and replace windows. So far I've only used linux for myself on the laptop.

Gordon Cooper wrote:

entropyfoe wrote:
And the big mistake is to enable other repositories,

Leaving the multimedia and/or test repositories enabled can cause real grief to unsuspecting users. It is acceptable to enable them briefly to download a particular
package(s) but be sure to cancel the enablement immediately afterwards.

We tend to err on the side of caution for our test repo. It's been OK to update fully from it for years now, but we just like users to upgrade piecemeal so it's easier to track down a problem package should one get in there.

Deb-multimedia, on the other hand, is a repeat offender.