Re: Uptimes - any guidance? [moving OT]

[AG <computing.account@googlemail.com>]

Allen Kenner wrote:

AG wrote:
  

Hello list

I'm running Squeeze on a desktop and so far have an uptime of some 11d. 
I am just curious whether or not there is any guidance/ advice on how
long uptimes should be allowed to be run, or whether it is wise to shut
down and reboot?
    

Are you by chance coming from Windows? ;)

  

Only when at work - at home, most assuredly not ... at least, not since 2001 anyway.

I'm thinking "wise" as from the perspective of the system and its
overall functioning, etc.  By way of comparison, I have a headless
OpenBSD box running nothing but firewall and router and it is a
workhorse - just keeps on going and going.  I'm sure I have clocked
uptimes of 90+ days on that without a problem.
    

Open BSD and Debian are similar in terms of stability. I personally
think OpenBSD is crap and the guy doing it is a totally arrogant jerk,
and not in the self respectable way but that's just me. 

That's an interesting opinion, and certainly not one that I've come across before (about OBSD, not de Raadt, who I couldn't comment on).  I was under the impression that OBSD was considered one of the best OSs for security, due to the security audit of all lines of code, automatic lockdown of services by default, and strong encryption, as well as the OBSD's team uncompromising stance on openness, etc.  So just interesting to hear such an apparently widly divergent opinion on the OS.

I use FreeBSD
instead for BSDs as it's closer to the stuff from Berkeley, 

Yeah, FreeBSD has always interested me, but I have yet to try it.  Maybe once I've finished my current project and have some time on my hands, I may well look to dual boot FreeBSD and Debian, just to see if there's any difference.  Are there any issues regarding UID flags for /home for example on a shared Debian/ FreeBSD machine, if both OSs try to access the same directory?

<snip>

I rarely reboot ever. One of the things that made me use Linux and BSD
to begin with was me being tired of rebooting for a MEDIA PLAYER! I
couldn't believe I had to reboot for it, and got fed up. Now, I reboot
only to add hardware. (I use FreeBSD, Slackware, SUSE, Mandriva, Debian,
and Solaris).
  

Aaah Slackware ... I still have fondness for Slackware and enjoyed using it from 8.1 to 11.0  However, I confess to having become quite spoiled by the package management system of Debian (and I suspect that FreeBSD and Gentoo are similar with ports and portage respectively).

Cheers

AG