 So there has been a lot of talk over the last couple of weeks about the Linus Tech Tips Linux challenge and even I have made a video about it. I don't want to talk too much about the particular challenge in this video, but one of the things that Linus himself has talked about is the frequency that he is forced and I use that word because that's the word he used to reboot his computer. Now there is a myth in the Linux community that is widely spread that you never have to reboot your computer after an update and this is not true. You do have to reboot your computer in order for updates to take effect. Now where Linux differs is that you're not absolutely forced to do so right away. Now for people who have used Windows before and I'm pretty much assuming that's mostly everyone, you'll know that when you update Windows you have to restart every time. There's no exceptions. Every time you do an update you have to reboot and the thing is you are forced to reboot eventually. Eventually Windows won't take no for an answer and they will go through and reboot your computer whether you're ready to do so or not. On Linux that is not the case. You do the updates whenever you feel like it. You're never forced to do an update and once that update is done you don't have to do a reboot immediately unless you want to. You can do so whenever you're available to do so. Now there are several things that make this situation more complicated because the truth is the only time you absolutely have to reboot your computer is when system files are modified. So the big example of this is the kernel itself. When the kernel is updated, which it probably is whenever you're running on something like Arch or the unstable version of Debian or something like that, something that's a little bit more rolling in flavor, chances are you're going to see it a kernel update and that means that there are files on your system that have been modified and in order for any of those changes to take effect you have to go through and reboot your computer. You get to choose when that reboot happens but if you want those changes in the update to take effect you have to eventually reboot your computer and the situation where system directories and files are modified is the only situation where you absolutely have to reboot after an update. It gets more complicated when you're talking about applications because you have to remember that Linux treats updates much more differently than Windows does. When you update Windows all you're updating is your operating system. Anything else is updated through an app by app basis. So Photoshop will update itself. Microsoft Word will update itself. Whatever application you're thinking of will update itself unless you've got it through something like the Microsoft Store in which case the Microsoft Store will handle the updates. The system updater just updates Windows. On Linux when you do an update it literally updates everything, whether you've downloaded that from a store, whether you downloaded it from the command line, whether it's a snap, whatever. When you update it updates everything. So what that means is you kind of have to know what is being updated because if it's a kernel update or something similar to the kernel that is necessary for the system to run, in other words it's running all the time on your computer, in order for those things to have the update take effect you have to reboot your computer but if it's an application that's not true. If it's, for example, say it's Firefox, you use Firefox as your browser and an update comes through. It will go through an update even if Firefox is running. But you don't have to reboot your computer once you're done updating Firefox you just have to close Firefox and open Firefox back up again in order for that update to take effect. So that's where it gets a little complicated because applications and this usually mostly applies to user installed applications or distro installed applications. If those things have updates really all that has to be done is for those applications to be closed and then reopened in order for the updates to be take effect. So I can see where the confusion is for Linus and Luke who are very new to Linux or their new to Linux desktop. But to say that you're being forced to update or excuse me to say that you're being forced to reboot is just not true. I've never once in four years of using Linux full time been forced to reboot. Now I suppose if you say you have to reboot after a kernel update that is technically being forced to reboot. But the thing is it's I think the definition of forced is a little bit different here because yes you do have to reboot after a kernel update. But you get to choose when it could be a week from now. Your computer is going to be perfectly fine running after that update if you don't reboot. You won't get any of the benefits of that new kernel obviously because it's waiting for you to reboot for those things to take effect because your kernel has been loaded into memory and it can't be modified until it's no longer there. But again you can go through and do that reboot whenever you feel like Windows forces you to do a reboot after an update. Oftentimes it only gives you a few hours to say no until it just forces you to do so like you have to do it. And this and it it's worse because they force you to update in the first place. Like on Linux you'll never ever be forced to update. Now there are certain more new user friendly distros that are much more forceful in terms of suggesting that you update. For example Ubuntu and Linux Mint they will actually go through and frequently suggest that you have to update your computer. But just because they suggest you do doesn't mean you have to. Whereas Windows will actually go through and update your computer whether you like it or not. And eventually will force you to reboot no matter what no matter what you're doing. You could be you know editing a document or whatever. And if the system decides you have to reboot it's just going to reboot. That's where Linux is miles and away better than Windows will ever be. So bottom line I think that everything surrounding this idea that you are being forced to reboot can be very confusing for new users. It's definitely the case. But it's imperative for people who know about Linux to spread the truth. Because yes you do have to reboot your computer from time to time. But no you're never going to be forced to do so immediately upon the end of your update. Like if you just never will be you can update or you can reboot whenever you want to. The thing is you just have to keep in mind that eventually if you want that new kernel or whatever that system file to be or dependency or whatever to be you know used in a new update to be applied you then have to reboot your computer. So it can be like I said very complicated. But again it's very important for us to be honest about it. Instead of saying well I'm being forced to reboot my Linux computer all the time which is what has been said. And that's just not the truth. I mean I think the biggest problem and I didn't want to talk too much about the challenge itself is that Linus has said he's using Manjaro which is an ArchBase distro. He's using a rolling release. So he's getting kernel updates all the time probably several times a week and when those updates come through if you want those updates to take effect he then has to reboot. So if he had picked a distro like Ubuntu like the LTS version of Ubuntu or Linux Mint or PopOS literally any Debian based distro he would have been miles away better and he would have never experienced this whole reboot issue because those distros don't update the kernel very often at all. The LTS release gets a kernel update maybe two or three times a year maybe not even that often and you don't have to install those if you don't want to. You know those are things that are completely opt in you know. So I think a lot of his problems have been because of the distro that he chose. Now whether or not Manjaro is a new user friendly distro is something that we can argue about in another video but I think that the problem there relies in the distro he chose and not in Linux itself. So that is it for this video if you want to get in contact with me you can do so by leaving a comment in the comment section below. Follow me on Twitter at Linuxcast. Follow me on Odyssey at Linuxcast or supporting me on Patreon at patreon.com slash Linuxcast. Before I go I'd like to take a moment to thank my current patrons Devon, Chris, East Coast Web, Gentoo's Fun2, Patrick L, Marcus, Meglin, Jax, Neftool, Steve A, Mitchell, Art, Center, Merritt, Camp Drash, Reli, J-Dog, and BSD's Rock. Thanks everyone for watching. I'll see you next time.