You don’t have to reboot for every update - for a server it would be mostly kernel updates that require a reboot. If you enable live patch or subscribe to another live kernel update service you don’t need to reboot for most security patches.

It suggests that you reboot. You don't have to reboot. It doesn't crash or force-reboot your machine.

A few updates suggest it very hardly. Up to the point of not letting you launch any new application.

But yes, it doesn't crash or force-reboot.

Yes but they suggest it very annoyingly. So I feel bad not rebooting.

I don't think I've ever seen a Debian or Ubuntu "stable update" / "patch" (apt-get upgrade, not dist-upgrade - what is enabled by default these days) break anything - I've been using various variations of Debian since around Debian 3(? 1.2/1.3-kernel era).

There has been a few (documented!) issues with major upgrades, like lilo-grub transition and Ubuntu changing system group ids.

But there are no forced lts-to-lts upgrades - and generally they are quite stable.

As sibling comment mentions, canonical even have a live-patch service for kernel updates without reboot (not that I would recommend that - doing a reboot after patch is a nice way to verify that the system still boots ok - which it should - but easier to debug when you know there's just been a patch..).

I never do in-place updates for OS's, but Ubuntu's dist-upgrade is reliable enough that I'm comfortable with it.

It might not 'break' anything but apt tends to run just after login, which reduces the user experience to molasses as it thrashes around.

It should really be delayed by 10 or 15 mins so that the user has a chance to start working on their immediate tasks.

AFAIK it's ran via cron/systemd - so it should only affect login if the computer was off before login? And apt update / download should not impact a reasonable system (maybe something with really slow storage, like a microsd card, though?).

There are countless examples of people having problems post-update. Its understandable that you personally haven't gone out of your way to look, but its easy with a quick internet search. (BTW I don't mean to attack you personally, I just wanted to present examples.)

https://www.reddit.com/r/linuxquestions/comments/y9fly1/lapt...

https://www.reddit.com/r/pop_os/comments/r9w1he/os_bricked_a...

https://www.reddit.com/r/ManjaroLinux/comments/sdf5sg/new_up...

Two of these seem unclear if update or just reboot triggered an error? The last one (middle one, machine boots but is unstable) - is also unclear - as far as I can tell the user doesn't report if the system still runs OK with old kernel? (and all of these appear to affect other distros than stable Debian or lts Ubuntu - I've certainly seen a few issues when running Debian testing or sid. Updates without the "stable" part aren't always stable!).

Okay fair enough, my general point was that its not exactly rare (as many have implied) for Linux users to have problems with updates. A cursory internet search links to forums filled with people having issues.

Oh, I've had issues with Manjaro Linux for example (I inherited a laptop at work that I didn't immediately reinstall) - but Arch/Manjaro are rolling, bleeding edge distros - it's like using beta channels of windows or being an early adopter of macos releases.

My point was specifically about Debian stable and Ubuntu LTS.

Ed: And of course errors found and bugs filed in Debian sid(unstable) or testing - or Ubuntu non-lts contribute to those bugs not affecting those that run stable releases.