[ale] contradictions in the world of patching

[Ron Frazier (ALE)]

inline

JD <jdp at algoloma.com> wrote:

>On 10/10/2013 02:56 PM, Ron Frazier (ALE) wrote:
>> Hi all,
>> 
>> I was just sitting here having the "fun" of doing the monthly ritual
>of installing patches on my Windows laptop.  Last Tuesday was the 2nd
>Tuesday, patch day.  There were 23 this time.  Next, I get to have the
>fun of replicating that procedure on my other computers and vm's,
>which, all combined, is a fair number of machines.
>> 
>> Linux Mint is not much better.  Since patches are continuously
>released, it's not uncommon for me to patch Mint every time I boot it. 
>If I ignore either OS for a couple of months, it's not uncommon to have
>to install almost 100 patches.
>> 
>> Now, I think it's a good thing that the OS's are being kept as secure
>as possible, assuming this is the best way we have to do this.
>> 
>> Here's the contradiction I thought of.  My Android tablet NEVER gets
>updated by Acer.  They did bump me from Honeycomb (Android 3.??) to Ice
>Cream Sandwich (Android 4.??).  But, aside from that, as far as I know,
>there are no updates.
>> 
>> So, is it necessary to do all this patching or not?  If it is, why
>does Android get left out in the cold?
>> 
>> Any thoughts?
>> 
>
>Easy. Acer sucks. They are ignoring released patches from the upstream.
> I have
>an A500 too. Acer is treating them like a simple toaster vendor -
>ignoring older
>models.
>
>Daily patching of Linux - really?  1st thing every Saturday morning, I
>patch.
>NEVER during the week. It is easy enough to script or use tools that it
>doesn't
>really matter if I patch 1 or 50 systems then.

I didn't technically say every day.  I said every time I boot.  On some machines, I only boot them every week or so.  On others, I boot them and let them keep running.  But usually, no more than a week will go by before the updater is bugging we wanting to patch.

>
>For Windows, I'm on automatic for things from MS. Don't use many other
>programs
>on Windows, but when I do, I try to use ninite installer for the
>high-risk
>things and just re-run it.  That grabs the latest and installs it. 
>Almost like
>APT. ;)
>

I may have to check out that installer.  It sounds interesting.

One of my machines is on auto update.  Two others run vm's sometimes and two others ARE vm's.  In the first case, I don't want those machines spontaneously shutting down to do patches.  In the latter case, auto patches only work if the machine is left running overnight and can reboot itself.  That's not usually the case with the vm's.



--

Sent from my Android Acer A500 tablet with bluetooth keyboard and K-9 Mail.
Please excuse my potential brevity if I'm typing on the touch screen.

(PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
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Ron Frazier
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