image caption: A Microsoft Windows screen showing “Active Hours” with start time set to 12 AM and end time set to 12 AM and an error that says “Choose an end time that’s no more than 18 hours from the start time”.
image caption: A Microsoft Windows screen showing “Active Hours” with start time set to 12 AM and end time set to 12 AM and an error that says “Choose an end time that’s no more than 18 hours from the start time”.
Linux “reboots” every program and service it updates separately.
So the only update that needs a reboot is one of the kernel, which doesn’t happen often.
With Enterprise Linux, you can update the kernel without a reboot, too.
Yes, RHEL and Ubuntu Pro have live kernel patching, but that only includes patches for select vulnerabilities and doesn’t always work depending on the state of the kernel (i.e. is the kernel tainted).
Your Linux distro doesn’t automatically relaunch your desktop session or browser. You need to close+reooen or log out/log in for updates to apply. That’s why Linux and software like Firefox constantly complain when you haven’t restarted after an update.
Obviously there’s a small handful of things that would require a reboot, but unlike Windows, the vast majority of programs in user space don’t require reboots on update.
There’s also the fact that restarting Windows to update is a much slower and more disruptive experience than restarting Linux.