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Comment by vidarh

7 days ago

As a Linux user, it pisses me off whenever I am forced to reboot, and I'm very disappointed if my laptop uptime is measured in less than months.

Needing to shut down to me indicates something is broken.

10 comments

vidarh

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gonzalohm  7 days ago

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

  • vidarh  7 days ago

    Not having to stop sessions of all kinds of things and restart them for no good reason.

    It doesn't require it to stay up, and if things were better at retaining state across restarts I would care less, but it's a nuisance to have to log back into things, and get things back exactly how I left them.

    I often have half a dozen projects up on different virtual desktops, and leaving them how they were when I worked on it last makes it easier to get back up to speed.

    EDIT: I used to leave screen sessions running on servers instead, as the workaround to having to reboot my local machine. But it's nice not to need to.

  • bigstrat2003  6 days ago

    Nothing requires it. But if I turn off my computer, it takes 15s or so to boot up. If I leave it on, it's available for me instantly. The latter is a more pleasant experience, so I gravitate towards it.

  • flowerbreeze  7 days ago

    Different reasons. Mine is on the table and I use it more like a desktop. It will just idle when I'm not around, because I come and go often. My current uptime shows on Debian 30 days, 49 min.

    Although... 30 days is maybe a bit misleading, because I ran some heavy shaders without thinking that triggered the GPU watchdog and forced me out of my session. I think killing all user processes is almost like a reboot, although not according to uptime.

  • vasco  6 days ago

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

    • gonzalohm  6 days ago

      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.

AlienRobot  6 days ago

Keeping a PC running when you aren't doing anything with it sounds like a waste of electricity to me.

Electricity also wears down electronic components, so I think it also shortens the lifespan of your PC parts.

  • vidarh  6 days ago

    I can't remember the last time I got a new PC because the old one broke, vs. because I wanted one that was better.

    As for being wasteful, sure, but it adds up to an insignificant rounding error of my total energy use so it's not something I lose any sleep over.