 One of the questions that I get a lot is how often should I update my computer now? This question is really hard to answer because it depends on a lot of different factors It depends on what distribution you're using and even then it if you're just if everybody used Ubuntu It's still be hard to answer this question because Everyone has different scenarios for using Ubuntu. Are you using it on a server? Are you using it on a desktop? Are you subscribed to a whole bunch of PPAs? Do you have a whole bunch of snaps installed? Are you using the LTS? Are you using the rolling rhino thing? There's just so many different factors into The answer to this question. How do you answer the question when somebody asks you how often should I update my computer? It really gives you an idea of the reason why Microsoft does updates the way they do They just don't give anybody a choice They just do the updates and say hey reboot your computer and if you don't want to boot your computer now We're gonna force you in about four hours That's the way Windows does things and it drives me bonkers because I don't want to be forced to update my computer I don't want to be forced to Reboot my computer, but that's kind of beside the point the the point is is that updates can kind of be a mess It's kind of a minefield of not only misinformation, but also Just too many factors to actually reliably get a good answer So today what I'm gonna talk about is how often you should really truly update your computer So let's break this down into two sections. Shall we we'll focus first on Quote-unquote stable distributions now I really hate the term stable distribution because it implies that things that are rolling releases aren't stable Which is completely untrue, but that's really beside the point most people consider Ubuntu Debbie and Linux meant Zorin elementary those things are Stable distros meaning that they get updates on a certain schedule and they are Not rolling releases. They don't get updates all the time like immediately. They have a set release schedule so for those distributions Updating can be a little tricky because again, it depends on certain things for me personally Updating any version of Ubuntu or any of those other distros Every two weeks makes the most sense even if you're on an LTS Updating every two weeks makes the most sense to me it isn't so often as to be frustrating and annoying to the servers and to yourself because You're not, you know always expecting something new when you're probably not gonna get something new every day And even if you were to get something new every day It's just not something that I mean that's not really if you're gonna do something like that Then you're probably gonna be happier on a rolling release because you're going to actually get a whole bunch of stuff every single day You'll be happier. So every two weeks makes the most sense on Quote-unquote stable distros and this is very much a personal opinion. There's no exact science here that I'm using to Figure this answer out like if you decide you want to do it every three weeks You're gonna be perfectly fine if you want to do it every month, whatever it will work for you just fine With the stable distros the amount of time between updates doesn't matter nearly as much as it does on rolling releases So we'll just put that out there It's very easy to go from one version of Ubuntu to the next one without hardly any issues at all because the They're meant to go from one version to the next that's how they Designed them so if you don't want to do it every two weeks and you want to wait longer wait longer If you want to do it every week you could do that I would not say you should do it every day It seems kind of pointless to me You're not gonna get a lot of updates that way just go every two weeks every week whatever just the best Advice I can give you is to set a rhythm like just set a timeframe of you always gonna do this stuff Update every two weeks and then do it you know whether that's scheduling a cron job We're just putting it on your calendar or whatever just know that you're going to do this every two weeks or whatever time frame you've chosen Now if you are on a rolling release distros things like arch or arch based distros gen 2 things like that The answer to the question is going to be a little bit different because the way those distributions work they're reliant on almost constant updates and The things that you're downloading most often aren't going to be the big packages that you're going to be using so You're not going to get a brand-new version of LibreOffice every day like you're not The things that come through most in arch based distro updates or gen 2 probably is the dependencies that most of your packages Actually rely on that's what you're basically updating that in system level Packages that the kernel and stuff relies on that's what you're updating and the point of a rolling release in the reason Why you would use a rolling release is because you want that Bleeding edge stuff on your computer all the time So you're not going to want to wait on your updates nearly as much as you would if you used Ubuntu also Waiting a long time between updates on an arch based distro or gen 2 based It you can actually be harmful to your computer because a lot of times because of the pace of Development on a rolling release distro things can become in conflict very fast So if you wait to update something that is reliant on something that is a different version or whatever I mean, there's just so many things that can go wrong If you've waited for a long time chances are something is going to break So if you wait many years to update your arch based distro Chances are you're not going to be able to actually update that thing You're going to find errors and you'd have to manually Like weed through all of the dependency errors and all that stuff in order to actually do that and at that point It's probably just easier to nuke and pave and start over again That's not something you'll ever see or at least you shouldn't ever see on an Ubuntu or WN based distro That is much more, you know, quote-unquote stable Those get updates at a set pace and they are meant to go from version to version to version. There are no versions of arch Linux, right? Technically they have version numbers on on their ISOs or whatever, but their dates really they those are just compile dates for their ISOs They create a new ISO every so often so that that has the most recent stuff on there And then you know, that's the way that works is they're not actual versions like Ubuntu has So how often do you update these distros the answer to that question is Again subjective for me. It's every four days. I update every four days. It seems to work for me Now I know a lot of people who update every single day I know a lot of youtubers the update arch every single day and there's nothing wrong with that if you are on a slower internet connection updating every day probably makes more sense because you're never going to have a Huge update dump where you have just like two gigabytes worth of updates And you have to take forever to download those and then install them So updating every day probably makes sense for if you're in that scenario if you're like me Who doesn't have that problem every four days makes sense to me the longest I would ever wait as a week I would never go more than a week on an arch based or gen 2 based distro And the reason why is just because beyond that things can get a little iffy sometimes things break And it's just better for your peace of mind to know that you have done everything in your power to make sure your system Stay stable. That's the reason why I never really suggest an arch based distro for new users because There is a much more Responsibility in using a rolling release than there is in something like Ubuntu Ubuntu You can install that on a friend's computer who knows nothing about computers and just let them use it They don't have to worry about updates. Nothing. You can you can then go back to that computer Months later and do an update and it will work just fine You know, it'll it'll update it'll have a lot of updates obviously, but it will work just fine You're not going to have any big problems It'll just continue to work if you installed arch on a person's computer and then came back months later They'd never done an update something is gonna break. I almost guarantee it. That's the reason why I don't consider it a new user Distro so anything beyond a week really doesn't make sense, right for me four days is The answer to the question now at the beginning I said that this question was hard to answer and you've probably realized Why and you'll have seen throughout the entire video that I've been waffling back and forth over Trying to express how these are basically my opinions like for me I ended up on these answers through Experimentation and over like five years worth of using Linux like this is through experience My personal experience of using Linux Everyone has a different experience using Linux However, so the reason why it's a hard question to answer is simply because it's not going to be the same for everyone My best advice that I can give you is to use Linux for a while Expect things to break every once in a while if you're using like an arch-based distro if you are experimenting, right? just know that Your you are learning along the way you're going to learn exactly what is good for you If you are an Ubuntu guy and you're using an Ubuntu all the time over a long period of time of using Ubuntu You're going to have a really good idea of when updates come in How often you need to do updates and so on and so forth same thing with arch or gen 2 or whatever Every distribution is going to be exactly the same in that regard if just use it, okay? And have a good idea of what to do do updates Fairly frequently to begin with and then space them out for a little while and see how long you can go Without updating before things break if you're going to do it that way if you're going to do an Experimentation in that way so that you can learn for yourself how long you need to or how often you need to update The only thing I tell you is make sure you have backups Okay, always make sure you have backups of your data that way if something does break like if you're an arch and an Update breaks your system if you have an update you're good to go You just reinstall and you can carry on with your merry day if you are a nerd And you understand what I'm talking about you can use something like butter FS and that will be even better for you because you can then roll back to a snapshot and it will Allow you to basically pick up where the computer knows your computer was last working So despite the word vomit I just said just know that if you use a snapshot You can carry on from wherever the last working point of your computer was The point is is that butterfaces a good tool if you would like a tutorial on butter fest leave a comment in the comment section below That's something that I've kind of been putting off because I don't really know if anybody would actually be interested in that kind of thing So just let me know anyways So if you have any tips or anything like that for other people you can leave those in the comment section below if you Have any comments on this subject you can leave those there as well You can follow me on Twitter at the Linuxcast you can support me on patreon at patreon.com slash linuxcast before I go I'd like to take a moment think my current patrons Robert Sid Devon Patrick Fred Kramer Maglin Jackson neck and tools D base ever go next Eric Samuel Mitchell arts energy dog carbon data Jamie Sean Oden martini Andy Ross Merrick Cam Joshua Lee Peter a crucible dark minutes x time as a PM Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time