For my rea job,I work as a systems admin, and yeah, for servers, safely tucked behind a firewall, once a server is up and running, and is running an application, be it an Oracle database, MySQL database, and the application is running as it should, we then don’t touch the server in case an upgrade causes the application to break. It tends to be an all or nothing upgrade including hardware, with lot’s of testing etc, before making it a production server. Now, for desktops/laptops, yep tend to keep them right upto date, hence I’m sat here with a fully updated ‘INTREPID’ webbook, an Edubuntu (based on INTREPID) on a PC, and Fedora 10 on a couple, PC’s/laptop, both at home and at work.

Cheers

PS,I think I just waffled on a bit there, sorry.

And, oooh, now there’s a thought! Seriously though, I’d look a bit daft pointing to the webbook and claiming it to be a server capable of running online business. Whether it technically can is a different matter, but it’s what it looks like – size matters to system admins!

“Important security updates: These are obviously the only ones you will have to enable if your computer is connected to the Internet, in order to keep you secure. Enabling this is smart. Even if you don’t connect to the Internet, it won’t hurt. “

I just want to be absolutely sure I am doing the right thing before I click on that red arrow and install these security updates!!

Thanks for your prompt reply, Alan.

There does seem to be some very contradictory information out there about Ubuntu Security Updates. In the community documentation about Repositories, it says:

“Important Security Updates (hardy-security)”. Patches for security vulnerabilities in Ubuntu packages. They are managed by the Ubuntu Security Team and are designed to change the behavior of the package as little as possible — in fact, the minimum required to resolve the security problem. As a result, they tend to be very low-risk to apply and all users are urged to apply security updates.

“Recommended Updates (hardy-updates)”. Updates for serious bugs in Ubuntu packaging that do not affect the security of the system.

However, after I had posted my query last night I read the following rather ominous passage in a (downloadable) Ubuntu Study Guide:

“As strange as it may sound, some administrators don’t install all security updates….The security updates you install depend on the services you need…

New kernels can be especially difficult for some….Certain databases may be certified to a certain kernel version….Specialised drivers may be available for only for certain kernels…

Ubuntu Security Notices (USN) are designed to help the administrator understand if a security update is needed…”

I would be very interested to know what you make of that, Alan.

I do not use them any more at all. Trying to get a query answered is just a nightmare and ends up making me more annoyed just out of frustration. When it works they are OK, but when there is an issue, any issue, it is painful in the extreme.

Mr Angry.

But, tonight, my webbook is being naughty:
E: Could not get lock /var/cache/apt/archives/lock – open (11 Resource temporarily unavailable)
E: Unable to lock the download directory

If somebody could be so kind as to translate that first line into human, I’d be most grateful!

There website is stupidly complex, and seems to change my order every time, so i have to go back and change it back.

When I want to buy a laptop, i want a nice simple layout, with a clear price (including delivery etc)

if i want to make changes it should be easy to do, but it should come with a decent default spec.

Sorry about the rant – i’ll cool off now

Phil