Have you restarted your computer this week? • Hacker News Board

Re: Have you restarted your computer this week?

#381

Post by loloquwowndueo » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC

raxxorraxor wrote: post #370

loloquwowndueo wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I remember when Linux users were practically obsessive about uptime and restarting felt like a sign of failure I remember it too, like it was yesterday. Wait - it was yesterday. I see people rebooting Linux boxes to cargo cult trying to fix all kinds of issues and I’m like - rebooting is not a solution. This is not Microsoft Windows.

I mean linux boxes sometimes needed a lot of time to boot before SSDs became available. Today I reboot the system if I don't know the particular name of some systemd service I need to restart. So just restart everything! To be honest, I would recommend doing that from time to time even on linux boxes. Not because the system becomes unstable, just to check if all your services come up as expected. For the case that yo…

So you’re not using full disk encryption? Typing the encryption password is probably slower than systemctl | grep to find what you need to restart.

Re: Have you restarted your computer this week?

#382

Post by gonzalohm » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 2:40 PM UTC

vasco wrote: post #258

gonzalohm wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What can possibly require a laptop to be up for months? I have a Linux server that can run for years without needing a reboot. But my laptop I just shut it down after my work is done

What can possibly require a laptop to be shut down instead of put to sleep?

Energy savings, freeing up resources, allowing to apply security updates, reducing strain on battery, giving you a clean start after booting, closing network connections, etc.

Re: Have you restarted your computer this week?

#383

Post by icedchai » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 2:43 PM UTC

fernandotakai wrote: post #372

one33seven wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is your bosses problem. Apply security patches and reboot. Find a book to read.

yup, that's exactly what i do. if anything is making me less productive or just plain stopping my job, i raise an IT ticket, tell my manager and go for a walk.

This is the right attitude, but others often refuse to press the issue. The only way this crap gets fixed is for it to cost the company enough lost productivity (and money) to make it worth fixing. If the intent is to "be secure", fix it. And fix it correctly. Don't have every developer on the same project asking for access to AWS and opening their own tickets... It's insane.

Re: Have you restarted your computer this week?

#384

Post by zamadatix » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 2:49 PM UTC

butlike wrote: post #376

To be honest, I just find it annoying I have to 2FA sign into JIRA and everything else if I restart, so I don't.

IT departments which mandate MFA on everything but don't bother offering a hardware security key option so it isn't hell deserve to log in and out of all their apps 10,000 times.

Re: Have you restarted your computer this week?

#385

Post by zamadatix » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 2:59 PM UTC

SirMaster wrote: post #137

Is it weird that we don't have a way to update the system without rebooting by this day and age? I think there are things in Linux like live kernel patching (kexec, ksplice), but why by 2026 is this sort of architecture of live system updates not a common or included feature yet? People hate updates and having to reboot and have downtime right? Security updates to core systems are more important than ever now too. So…

Some things are easy to live patch, others are complex monsters.

The complex monsters tend to result in corner case considerations like "already open sockets cannot be upgraded but new ones will be" and a massive amount of testing to make sure the convenience saved is more than the risk of inconvenience due to some bug with a complex live patch.

Designing the whole system for live patching from day 1 can reduce the number of complex monsters but it's still more complex, and that's a ton of work (rebuild all or just shipping live patches) that could go into fixing other annoyances/limitations which are even mor inconvenient than rebooting for most users.

The result is some things support them in the most impactful cases, like certain types ofOS kernel updates, but most cases it's better to work on other conveniences instead.

Re: Have you restarted your computer this week?

#386

Post by throw-nodox-23 » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 3:06 PM UTC

drbscl wrote: post #346

throw-nodox-23 wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah.. that’s a bit where the shoe pinches. We could just grab a book and lean back - but being 0.017% (!) of the total global workforce (we’re ~70) we’d easily be seen as insignificant if we continuously don’t meet our targets. So we’re a bit stuck between a rock and a hard place. Do we keep rolling our rock up the hill and keep going, or risk it rolling over us and squooshing us into oblivion? At this point, I’m re…

> I enjoy my job a lot I'll be real with you, I wouldn't make a throwaway account to talk about a bad company policy if I enjoyed my job. I'd recommend looking for another, the job market is nowhere near as bad as people claim (at least for non-junior positions).

I hear you! And it’s not like I haven’t considered it - thing is I really do enjoy the work I get to do in this agency (which is this tiny pixel in the tapestry of Big Org CO). It’s varied, impactful, and I can morally stand behind a large portion of the projects I’m on.

It’s just that.. we’re owned by Big Brother, they have little involvement in what we do other than this compliance hullabaloo.

But we’re all trying to David the sh*t out of our Goliath - and to some extent we’ve actually been successful.

But really I just wanted to share a story as to why I haven’t restarted my laptop in ages! Happy it lead to some fun conversations though.

Re: Have you restarted your computer this week?

#387

Post by throw-nodox-23 » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 3:09 PM UTC

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #329

throw-nodox-23 wrote: post #295

I.. I cannot restart my computer. Why? I work at a smallish agency as a developer. A few years ago we were acquired by a massive global corporation as part of the typical vertical integration strategy these big boys usually run with. Anyway, that’s all dandy as we otherwise would have perished during Covid. But this parent company, as many others, have some rather stringent security policies when it comes to IT. They…

Why http1 wouldn't work for webdev?

Little annoyances mostly. Lighthouse reports giving worse scores, Sanity’s live editing starts acting very weird/not at all.

Re: Have you restarted your computer this week?

#388

Post by throw-nodox-23 » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 3:11 PM UTC

TZubiri wrote: post #345

throw-nodox-23 wrote: post #295

I.. I cannot restart my computer. Why? I work at a smallish agency as a developer. A few years ago we were acquired by a massive global corporation as part of the typical vertical integration strategy these big boys usually run with. Anyway, that’s all dandy as we otherwise would have perished during Covid. But this parent company, as many others, have some rather stringent security policies when it comes to IT. They…

but don't you have a separate personal computer that you own, and this cursed computer would be property of the company? Otherwise if they are asking you to install this in your personal computer, I just wouldn't and I would submit a request to procurement for a corporate laptop.

Yeah totally - but the issue is doing work (which is a ’rare’ type of work in this massive org, so security policies are not catered for it) on my work laptop (:

Re: Have you restarted your computer this week?

#389

Post by brettermeier » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 3:21 PM UTC

kjellsbells wrote: post #151

dv35z wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some would say "Chaotic evil". Some would say "Always be prepared!!"

Some would say, "Oh, Windows Update again"

That is no longer up to date, Windows doesn't do it anymore (forced "random" updates with restart), at least in my experience. And I use it daily.

Re: Have you restarted your computer this week?

#390

Post by mr_toad » Wed, Jul 01, 2026, 3:56 PM UTC

wqaatwt wrote: post #371

itake wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is their resposibility to figure this out. You're responsible for your own career. During the next calibration call, your manager can't be like, "well he spent 8 hours each week resetting up his machine after a reboot, so we need to give him credit for that too." Your job is to deliver impact, not fight system configurations.

Ideally you’d just leave a shithole company like this (of course these days it might be exactly feasible..) I suppose filling out a ticker or two every day and constantly bothering IT non-stop might be rhetorical best option (assumings one has enough energy for that)

If only it took as long to close a ticket as to open one.