keeping my systems updated: Windows vs Linux
I want to keep my systems up to date. Not everyone does. As I understand it, Windows Update does not update the Linux portion. Yet another step to keep a Windows system safe as possible. My drill: - Run Windows update. If it actually applied an update, you should run it again in case the update enables a subsequent update (you cannot tell by its cheerful declaration that your system is up to date). Rinse and repeat. BTW, Windows Update seems unreasonably slow. And prone to inscrutable failures. - go to the Microsoft App Store and get updates. Be careful, it too can prematurely say that your apps are up to date. - ask the machine vendor's software if it has driver or firmware updates (Dell, Lenovo, HP, ...). Sometimes I have to manually download and install firmware updates. - for WSL: "sudo apt update" and "sudo apt full-upgrade" - for each piece of third party software, ask it if it has updates. This includes FireFox. My Linux drill: - [Fedora] "sudo dnf update" [debian family] "sudo apt update" and "sudo apt full-upgrade" - once in a while: "sudo fwupdmgr get-updates". If the vendor doesn't support the Linux Firmware project, another process is required (maybe involving Windows). Linux sure wins here!
I want to keep my systems up to date. Not everyone does.
As I understand it, Windows Update does not update the Linux portion. Yet another step to keep a Windows system safe as possible. My drill:
- Run Windows update. If it actually applied an update, you should run it again in case the update enables a subsequent update (you cannot tell by its cheerful declaration that your system is up to date). Rinse and repeat. BTW, Windows Update seems unreasonably slow. And prone to inscrutable failures.
- go to the Microsoft App Store and get updates. Be careful, it too can prematurely say that your apps are up to date.
- ask the machine vendor's software if it has driver or firmware updates (Dell, Lenovo, HP, ...). Sometimes I have to manually download and install firmware updates.
- for WSL: "sudo apt update" and "sudo apt full-upgrade"
- for each piece of third party software, ask it if it has updates. This includes FireFox.
My Linux drill:
- [Fedora] "sudo dnf update" [debian family] "sudo apt update" and "sudo apt full-upgrade"
- once in a while: "sudo fwupdmgr get-updates". If the vendor doesn't support the Linux Firmware project, another process is required (maybe involving Windows).
Linux sure wins here! I did this a while ago, but I noticed that exes were about twice as slow as yum at the time. It was even worse for apt, about 3 times. Windows
On 3/8/22 09:58, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote: packaging in exes is not that fast is the problem. If we're talking speed, packaging in Arch wins. Even in a VM with 2GB of RAM and 2 cores. It was able to do the install portion of 500MB of software in 32-33 seconds. I believe that's 30 plus packages from memory. Nick
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| From: Nicholas Krause via talk <talk@gtalug.org> [I've cut out the quotation of my message since Nicholas' message doesn't seem to respond to it.] | I did this What's "this"? | a while ago, but I noticed that exes were about twice as slow | as yum at the time. What are exes? Do you mean Windows .exe files? Those are executable files. How do they compare with yum, a package management program. yum has been replaced by dnf. If you type "yum" on fedora, you get dnf. If I remember correctly, "yum" stood for Yelllowdog Updater, Modified (Yellowdog Linux was a distro for POWER7). dnf is mysteriously powerful. At least mysterious to me. It solves dependencies using a SAT solver! | It was even worse for apt, about 3 times. Perhaps you are saying that apt is 50% faster than yum.
From other comments, it might be more than tis.
| Windows | packaging in exes is not that fast is the problem. Ahh. I guess you don't know the name of the Windows package manager but you are saying the packages are actually executables. Odd! I call the Windows package manager "Windows Update" -- that's the name I invoke to get updates. When I try to look at what is taking time with Windows Update, it is kind of hard because of the way services are agglomerated. It looks as if one piggy thing is anti-malware. Surely a decent cryptographic signature system could eliminate the need for that. | If we're talking speed, | packaging in Arch wins. Even in a VM with 2GB | of RAM and 2 cores. It was able to do the install portion of 500MB | of software in 32-33 seconds. I believe that's 30 plus packages from | memory. Speed isn't my favourite metric. Correctness, safety, and dependency management seem pretty important. Otherwise tar would be the winner. I have no idea how well arch's package manager does on those other concerns. It might be great. I mostly use dnf -- RPM packages. You really have to trust the packager since I think that the package's scripts are run as root.
On 3/8/22 18:33, D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
| From: Nicholas Krause via talk <talk@gtalug.org>
[I've cut out the quotation of my message since Nicholas' message doesn't seem to respond to it.]
| I did this
What's "this"?
| a while ago, but I noticed that exes were about twice as slow | as yum at the time.
What are exes? Do you mean Windows .exe files? Those are executable files. How do they compare with yum, a package management program.
yum has been replaced by dnf. If you type "yum" on fedora, you get dnf. If I remember correctly, "yum" stood for Yelllowdog Updater, Modified (Yellowdog Linux was a distro for POWER7).
dnf is mysteriously powerful. At least mysterious to me. It solves dependencies using a SAT solver!
| It was even worse for apt, about 3 times.
Perhaps you are saying that apt is 50% faster than yum. From other comments, it might be more than tis.
| Windows | packaging in exes is not that fast is the problem.
Ahh. I guess you don't know the name of the Windows package manager but you are saying the packages are actually executables. Odd!
I call the Windows package manager "Windows Update" -- that's the name I invoke to get updates.
When I try to look at what is taking time with Windows Update, it is kind of hard because of the way services are agglomerated. It looks as if one piggy thing is anti-malware. Surely a decent cryptographic signature system could eliminate the need for that.
| If we're talking speed, | packaging in Arch wins. Even in a VM with 2GB | of RAM and 2 cores. It was able to do the install portion of 500MB | of software in 32-33 seconds. I believe that's 30 plus packages from | memory.
Speed isn't my favourite metric. Correctness, safety, and dependency management seem pretty important. Otherwise tar would be the winner.
I have no idea how well arch's package manager does on those other concerns. It might be great.
I mostly use dnf -- RPM packages. You really have to trust the packager since I think that the package's scripts are run as root.
I was just curious about that. Of course, I don't think it's the only benchmark. As to the Arch Linux comments about a user, I have been planning on switching at some point. I've three primary reasons: 1. Basically only installs what I want, which is nice. The core packages are at most 500MB which is small for the desktop. Last I played with it my Arch install on a VM was about 5GB or so smaller than Fedora with the same packages plus the default system install. 2. Very lightweight i.e. I got Fluxbox to run in under 32MB of ram i.e. around 17-24MB. For vanilla XFCE from memory, people have got it to run on less than 64MB of ram. That's with all the modern standard features on a x86_64 bit modern distro. 3. Most of the packages are just vanilla upstream which I think is useful, at least for me. There at most a few minor packages applied. Sorry for the confusion Hugh, Nick
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participants (2)
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D. Hugh Redelmeier -
Nicholas Krause