Is it possible to update an operating system in the background?

[Ryanwake]

For simplicity's sake let's say Linux.

 

I imagine the operating system could be cloned that is what gets updated. And in between tasks it could switch over.

 

It would probably take less than 15 seconds and part of the operating system could still be running so you could run browsers are other programs.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Yea most linux distros do this already. Only the kernel needs a reboot, and programs are upgraded on the fly. Can still cause some issues, so a reboot is reccomended.

[mahyar]

well it can most of the time but sometimes updates do need a restart

[Ryanwake]

I had a similar idea before, it involved a Raspberry Pi type computer built into the motherboard, it would probably only cost 15 to $20 more.

 

Giving me the ability to do update the PC without restarting.

Load os, update bios, recover bios without a cpu.

 

Also it would give you an ultra power save mode, with the main CPU completely turned off.

[thDel]

5 minutes ago, Ryanwake said:

For simplicity's sake let's say Linux.

 

I imagine the operating system could be cloned that is what gets updated. And in between tasks it could switch over.

 

It would probably take less than 15 seconds and part of the operating system could still be running so you could run browsers are other programs.

please dont spam 

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, Ryanwake said:

I had a similar idea before, it involved a Raspberry Pi type computer built into the motherboard, it would probably only cost 15 to $20 more.

 

Giving me the ability to do update the PC without restarting.

Load os, update bios, recover bios without a cpu.

 

Also it would give you an ultra power save mode, with the main CPU completely turned off.

they basically already do this with impi on servers. a second little pc that can turn it on an off, give remote kvm, update the bios without the cpu in a web page.

 

I don't know how a pi would let it update the os without restarting. The restart windows(and other oses) for updates are noramlly due to files that are locked or i use normally that need to be modifed for updates.

[Ryanwake]

2 minutes ago, thDel said:

please dont spam 

Srry didn't release, I was responding to myself and hit the back button too many times.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

4 minutes ago, thDel said:

please dont spam 

For these little things, just report and move on.  The mods will deal with it accordingly. 

 

5 minutes ago, Ryanwake said:

Also it would give you an ultra power save mode, with the main CPU completely turned off.

You could but I feel in the long term it's just excess for the sake of excess. Like if you really need an ultra low power save mode... just turn on your computer. It doesn't take long to boot an OS these days anyways even with SATA SSDs. And you can set up the OS so it relaunches your opened applications upon the next boot. MacOS has been doing that for years if not decades. I believe I've seen this even with Tiger.  

[Ryanwake]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

they basically already do this with impi on servers. a second little pc that can turn it on an off, give remote kvm, update the bios without the cpu in a web page.

 

I don't know how a pi would let it update the os without restarting. The restart windows(and other oses) for updates are noramlly due to files that are locked or i use normally that need to be modifed for updates.

Do

 

1 minute ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

For these little things, just report and move on.  The mods will deal with it accordingly. 

 

You could but I feel in the long term it's just excess for the sake of excess. Like if you really need an ultra low power save mode... just turn on your computer. It doesn't take long to boot an OS these days anyways even with SATA SSDs. And you can set up the OS so it relaunches your opened applications upon the next boot. MacOS has been doing that for years if not decades. I believe I've seen this even with Tiger.  

Buy ultra power save mode I mean a Raspberry Pi uses single-digit Watts when PC uses over a hundred Watts just for the CPU.

 

But if you're just on Reddit or watching Netflix does your CPU really need to be on at all.

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, Ryanwake said:

Do

 

Buy ultra power save mode I mean a Raspberry Pi uses single-digit Watts when PC uses over a hundred Watts just for the CPU.

 

But if you're just on Reddit or watching Netflix does your CPU really need to be on at all.

The cpu basically already turns the cpu off at load loads, the c states can do that. You cpu in reddit uses just a few watts.

[Ryanwake]

4 minutes ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

For these little things, just report and move on.  The mods will deal with it accordingly. 

 

You could but I feel in the long term it's just excess for the sake of excess. Like if you really need an ultra low power save mode... just turn on your computer. It doesn't take long to boot an OS these days anyways even with SATA SSDs. And you can set up the OS so it relaunches your opened applications upon the next boot. MacOS has been doing that for years if not decades. I believe I've seen this even with Tiger.  

Also if you're doing something like crypto mining, a energy efficient CPU could do the same job and pay for itself in a few months.

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

3 minutes ago, Ryanwake said:

when PC uses over a hundred Watts just for the CPU.

 

But if you're just on Reddit or watching Netflix does your CPU really need to be on at all.

yeah, I doubt my cpu uses much power at all when browsing... at 1-5% usage, heck I play modern games at 1440p where it doesn't use much more (10%) so I kinda think you're way off here. 

[Ryanwake]

Just now, Mark Kaine said:

yeah, I doubt my cpu uses much power at all when browsing... at 1-5% usage, heck I play modern games at 1440p where it doesn't use much more (10%) so I kinda think you're way off here. 

I looked up the idle power consumption of the 9900 k, goes from 130 to 10. Not really enough information but best case scenario it would only save like 5 Watts.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

1 minute ago, Ryanwake said:

Do

 

Buy ultra power save mode I mean a Raspberry Pi uses single-digit Watts when PC uses over a hundred Watts just for the CPU.

 

But if you're just on Reddit or watching Netflix does your CPU really need to be on at all.

Your CPU is only pulling over a hundred watts under load. Most of the time it's just pulling a handful of watts for web-browsing and email. But watching Netflix I would expect it to be taxed. Just like how YouTube taxes machines rather heavily. Ever wondered why for battery life tests people tend to use video playback? It's quite demanding. 

 

Just now, Ryanwake said:

I looked up the idle power consumption of the 9900 k, goes from 130 to 10. Not really enough information but best case scenario it would only save like 5 Watts.

I fear the overhead to allow for that kind of (possibly constant) switching between your main CPU and the Raspberry Pi would nullify the pros. I'm no electrical engineer so I'm no expert on the topic. But it just seems unfeasible to me. 

[WereCatf]

37 minutes ago, Ryanwake said:

Also if you're doing something like crypto mining, a energy efficient CPU could do the same job and pay for itself in a few months.

Try mining on a Raspberry Pi and then come back and tell us how quickly it paid itself back....

34 minutes ago, Ryanwake said:

I looked up the idle power consumption of the 9900 k, goes from 130 to 10. Not really enough information but best case scenario it would only save like 5 Watts

Um, the difference between 130W and 10W is 120W, not 5W. No, PCs typically do not run at full blow at all times.

[Nayr438]

4 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Yea most linux distros do this already. Only the kernel needs a reboot, and programs are upgraded on the fly. Can still cause some issues, so a reboot is reccomended.

There is Kernel live patching.

https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/livepatch/livepatch.txt

 

Which is based on these projects.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ksplice

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KGraft

 

 

For applications, it depends on whats active and whats been updated. You have to restart processes from the bottom of the stack upwards. However projects like Fedora Silverblue and Fedora CoreOS are working on ways to update in real time with minimal to no downtime in application usage by utilizing a minimal core and containerized packages. Ubuntu has been working on and pushing for something similar as well.

 

 

[elsandosgrande]

4 hours ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

But watching Netflix I would expect it to be taxed. Just like how YouTube taxes machines rather heavily. Ever wondered why for battery life tests people tend to use video playback? It's quite demanding. 

That's the case with software decoding, but using VA-API for video playback reduces the load by quite a bit. I haven't done any extensive testing or looked into the details of it, so I'm probably at least partially mistaken, but I think that battery life tests use video playback because it kind of provides a baseline for light computer usage and because it's the easiest way to get the screen to not be static for a long time. Again, I might be at least partially mistaken, so please correct me if I am.