Are you supposed to reboot after each Manjaro release? Little lost here

[Chaussettes]

Sorry if this is the wrong place, but I’ve had a look around on the wiki and online and I can’t really find out what to do.

I’m sure it’s obvious but I’m a new Linux user. I’ve been using Manjaro for a couple weeks now. Today I ran sudo pacman -Syu to check for updates and I have been downloading the 21.0.2 update. I’m just confused on one thing, am I supposed to reboot after everything is finished downloading?

[Nachlese]

If key components are updated
like the kernel
and systemd
I’d reboot.
The system will stiill work without reboot.
But not using the updated components right away - especially and of course not the kernel.

@Chaussettes

am I supposed to reboot after everything is finished downloading?

no
just after actually having installed all that was downloaded

[Yochanan]

Install needrestart, run it and find out.

It’s probably a good idea with big stable branch updates. FYI, if there’s a kernel update you’ll need to reboot to load the new version.

[Chaussettes]

@Yochanan

Install needrestart, run it and find out.

It’s probably a good idea with big stable branch updates. FYI, if there’s a kernel update you’ll need to reboot to load the new version.

Thank you for letting me know about that tool, I will install it soon. I will give it a restart as it seems my kernel was updated to 5.10.30

[mithrial]

It will (probably) not crash but this depends on your definition on “will still work”. I can’t mount usb drives after a kernel update, so I have to reboot right away.

[omano]

For good measure, when you have a big update, just reboot.
Also if you’re new to Linux, look into TimeShift (available in Manjaro repositories already), a tool to make something similar to Windows’ Restoration Point.

[Nachlese]

@mithrial

I can’t mount usb drives after a kernel update, so I have to reboot right away.

That is probably due to other things being updated besides the kernel.
If the kernel is updated - nothing changes in the already running system.
(except perhaps some modules that where not loaded previously - these would fail to load because of the version mismatch)
but:
It’s almost never just the kernel …
In any case - what I said was:
… you can read it

my recipe:
kernel update and/or systemd update == reboot
I may defer it in other cases - but I will shut down my system (a laptop) every few days anyway.

[anon59284200]

If it’s just a simple update like Firefox, then exit Firefox and relaunch it.

If any major system components get updated, reboot.

If you’re not sure, it never hurts to reboot anyway.