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posted by martyb on Tuesday October 27 2015, @11:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the if-some-is-good-then-too-much-is-not-enough? dept.

Bruce Byfield's Blog on Linux Magazine explores the upgrade treadmill.

Byfield relates an old comic by Christiann MacAuley that depicts how Linux, Windows, and Mac users relates to a pop-up announcement saying: "An Update is Available for Your Computer".

The Linux user is enthusiastic, the Windows user groans, and the Mac user is glad it will only cost him $99.

One reason for switching to Linux used to be to get off the forced upgrades path common to proprietary software. Yet Linux users seem to have kept the urge to upgrade, even when the necessity was removed. Even when security fixes are back ported, to Long Term Support releases, we just can't seem to resist an upgrade.

Byfield explores the issue of upgrades, and why we Linux users feel compelled to perform major upgrades. Not only the minor patches to fix bugs that happen ever week. We routinely seem to rush in and put our entire systems at risk by installing complete system upgrades to new kernels, whole new desktops, sometimes new file systems, and even the dread systemd.

It's an interesting read, and set me wondering why so many Linux users chase upgrades for little or no new features.


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  • (Score: 2) by q.kontinuum on Wednesday October 28 2015, @10:27AM

    by q.kontinuum (532) on Wednesday October 28 2015, @10:27AM (#255498) Journal

    I update when I have the time. It's not a fetish of mine, but our developers often require the newest ruby/python/groovy version for different reasons, and the easiest way to get them is usually to run with the newest release of Fedora. Also it can be really painful to upgrade when the distribution you use is already out of maintenance. I had to update some Ubuntu 10.4 boxes some months ago, and it was less then convenient. Some repositories were missing, therefore some dependencies not solved on the update-path, and I ended up re-installing the PC. Since I always keep an update of /etc and keep /home on a separate aprtition anyways, a fresh installation is often much faster than fixing dependencies, but still more effort than just keeping the system up to date.

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