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Ask Slashdot: How Often Do You Update Your OS?
An anonymous reader writes: A couple friends of mine have been having a debate recently. One is constantly updating all of his operating systems (desktop, phone, and otherwise), often as soon as a new patch is available. He tries betas and nightlies. He has a different ROM on his phone every other week. The other friend is much more conservative with his updates. Once his systems are running smoothly, he wants to leave them alone for as long as possible. He'll do some serious security updates, but he's extremely wary of anything involving major UI changes or functionality differences. What's your preference? Are you constantly tweaking? Waiting for the early adopters to work out the kinks? How does your preference change between work machines and personal machines?
When does something ever evolve such that average users are not left behind? I mean, when was the last time the auto industry updated the blinker interface? Why does tech insist on updated stuff that ends up frustrating and annoying users to get an overall UI improvement of %0.01? Come on, guys, go work on something useful or make the bits behind the UI better.
First I update the VMs, if they survive then I update the main box. I'm running CentOS BTW.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
In the immortal words of Weird Al:
"I've beta tested every operating system; gave props to some but others, I dissed 'em "
Yeah I tend to update and change my OS frequently on my personal systems. Work systems tend to be kept in known stable configurations.
Nothing to see here
Alvin Toffler thought human personalities could be split between those who welcome change and those who avoid it. First published in mid-20th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.amazon.com/Future-S...
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Whenever I have some of the most expensive and valuable resource to waste - my time. If it is up and working, security updates go in, after 2 to 3 weeks, other updates may go with them as well, but not necessary. I would rather be out on my bicycle or working on my photo collection ( sometimes I take 3-4k photos on a weekend) than doing updates. Keep in mind, the summary talks about upgrades - the new rom every week. Update is keeping the same version, upgrade is moving to another.
This is an issue that I think is handled beautifully by Ubuntu's release system. LTS releases come out on a relatively steady schedule, with bleeding-edge releases in between. I personally stick with LTS releases, which come out often enough to keep me up to date with features, etc., but without lots of things breaking all the time.
And, yes, I like Unity very much.
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Captcha: demote
... Don't fix it
Let the suckers and adventurers be the beta testers.
Don't run the crap which is most likely to be causing you security problems in the first place -- I've never been impacted by a Flash zero day exploit because I don't run it.
Many years of being around computers has taught me that I have no intention of putting up with the drama of beta testing for companies who do a lousy job of QA.
I've seen WAY too many things which are broken on day 1, or even worse, which introduce new broken on day 1 that it takes some time to identify.
There isn't an OS vendor on the planet I'd accept a fresh release from and install on the first day.
If you do this stuff as a hobby, have fun with it. The rest of us don't have the time or the inclination to consider upgrading the OS to be a hobby.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Come now, you must get it right to properly summon him: it's HOSTS FILE, HOSTS FILE, HOSTS FILE.
Note: you should be looking in a mirror with the lights off for maximum effect.
And now my entire lab is going Linux, because this Win 10 thing and auto updates means our systems would be at risk.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I run a nightly ROM on my phone, but that's only because there's no stable release of it anymore (it's officially "unmaintained" but the nightlies work well).
My laptop runs debian testing, which I update daily. I follow "testing" not "stretch" - so when stretch is released (in 25 years or so), it'll automatically "upgrade" to the next testing.
My desktop runs arch. They use a rolling release, so I update that pretty often as well.
So I guess the whole "how often do you update" thing doesn't apply to rolling OSs.
Well my work machines belong to my employer and as such, rely on their update policy. They grab and test updates in their testing environment then push them out to the clients. We the users have no control over this.
My personal machines/phone.... different story.
While I was constantly playing with my galaxy S2, rooting, changing roms etc, I am running the stock rom on my S4. I'm that 1 guy that uses one or two samsung apps and refuses to lose their functionality by switching roms.
My home PC box gets the security updates automatically, the rest sit there, begging me to install them until I get so bored I read over the changes, check the blogs for horrific issues, then blindly update and install them all.
Linux, that is a whole other universe. I find a stable distro and keep it there, applying only security patches that directly affect my box until I get bored and start from 0 again.
for me it comes down to what I do with the box and that is what determines my update schedule. To be honest since pushing win7 to my box at launch with auto update set for all, I experienced ZERO issues, none of the bad patches made it to me.
Your friends show two distant points on the patching spectrum we have to make all the time.
Neither is right, nor wholly wrong. The first friend doesn't worry so much about stability, and for himself that's fine. He knows the choices he's making and he's really into that. Good for him. The second friend is more conservative and more in line with what the mainstream hopes for and expects. I'd like to know what they consider "serious security" updates, because it could be anywhere from reasonable security to complete insecurity. This is why most environments have tiers of patching and testing. We know we need to get security updates out as much as possible. Some people get more value out of being on the bleeding edge than having a stable install, others can't/won't have their work interrupted for any cost. This is also why this argument is silly to have between two people on which way is "better."
As for what I do? My home system gets updates as soon as I see they're available. I occasionally play with nightlies or betas, on a VM, to see if there are major interface tweaks, a new feature I want, or whatever else I'm interested in. I'd never suggest that for most of my friends or relatives.
Incidentally, that's pretty much how it goes at work. Most of the people I work with in IT, and a few select users are in the first group. Most people get security updates quickly, and well vetted other updates when they're more thoroughly tested.
I have one computer that just receives updates, but it is running a Linux distribution that mostly delivers bug and security patches rather than upgrading the software or changing the user interface. While it isn't my production computer per se, it is the machine that I expect to be reliable.
The rest of my computers and devices receive updates and upgrades as often as I feel like, which is frequently these days. Nightlies and betas are usually stable enough if you avoid the first few rounds. It is also fun to see how the technology is developing, even if I usually see the changes as frivolous or counter productive.
One thing that I don't go hog-wild on updating though is application software. It is far too easy to get data locked into a format that is incompatible with earlier releases, which is a time sink if things do go wrong and I do have to back up to a prior version. Operating systems aren't as much of a concern on this front since they just provide services to applications.
Much easier to sleep at night.
Which is the one which comes pre-installed on most distros?
with the production releases and patches. I won't use betas or nightlies unless I'm trying to fix a specific bug.
I'm still using DOS on a P-II w/640k RAM. No problems so far.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I used to tinker a *lot* more than I do now, but lately I have a more purpose-driven use of devices. This means I like to have them in a working and stable state when I turn them on, so my upgrades are fewer and further between. I think if your hobby is the devices themselves, then you'll upgrade a lot. If you're like me and your hobby/work involves use of the device, the bleeding edge doesn't matter so much unless the latest patch/whatever directly impacts what you're doing.
"False hope is why we'll never run out of natural resources!" - Lewis Black
I update as soon as I can. Once there is a hint of a new version I update. I use Ubuntu as my OS of choice, I never stick to a LTS. And my Android devices are always up to date with the newest Android, Cyanogenmod on all my devices except my Nexus 6 - which runs stock.
the Emacs vs VI war is over (Emacs won) ...
Yeah I'm thinking not. I've been a Unix sysadmin for over 15 years and I've never worked with a single person who uses Emacs.
Nothing to see here
The last major update I made to my my iPhone 4 was iOS 6.0. After I updated it, I could suddenly no longer get a signal in previous locations that were heavily covered by my provider. I also realized while on the way to a job interview that it had screwed up my GPS and I had lost turn-by-turn directions. I ended up calling a friend to have him read me the Google maps turn-by-turn directions.
I upgraded to iOS 6.1 which fixed the problems. It continues to do everything I needed, so I have not poked the sleeping bear since.
Caveat: this is mainly a Linux recommendation. ymmv with windows (may kill the cat, sour the milk, unravel a sweater.)
If you're running Fedora, or other bleeding-edge releases you might want to dial back the constant updating in favour of stability. New releases are often accompanied by unexpected instability and new bugs, in favour of additional features. If your project has a heavy focus on developers and not stability, problems updating to the latest version of a package can be compounded by issues like circular dependencies and missing libraries. Gentoo overlays, for example, are legendary in their varying degrees of skullduggery.
im not sure id ever recommend carte blanche nightly updates, but im an old neckbeard that takes far too much pleasure in the arcane nonsense of system administration. Tune into your project/distro's mailing lists for the latest info, just like you might tune into the weather channel. Did the opsec mailing list just issue security warnings for your distro? which packages do you use? updating them might be a good idea. set aside a time at the end of the week, or month, where you have a good hour away from other distractions to roll up the latest updates for other noncritical things on the OS. editors, music players, and the like can come when you, the sysadmin, are ready.
Finally, and rolling-release distros can tune out for this part, you want to be pretty careful about major updates. Did a new release come out? is it a major or a minor? what are the differences between those for your distribution? check the forums and IRC to see whos updates so far and what their experience was like. Some may recommend in-place updates, others may recommend a more unix-like backup-and-restore if the package or ports manager is known to be flakey. you dont have to pour through every iota of the release notes but its your perogative to know what changed, why it changed, and what it means for the way you use your computer.
lastly, dont sweat it. keeping current with security patches is a best practice we all appreciate on the internet, but I know plenty of people who never upgraded their djbdns installs and lived long enough to scold me about >512b DNS answers.
Good people go to bed earlier.
I'm on arch, so way too often if you ask me. To specifically answer the question: at least once a week, with probably a new kernel update every couple of weeks. I make sure I have LVM snapshots between each update procedure as at least 1/4 of the time something breaks. I really wish arch didn't use rolling updates, but the vast AUR repository unique to arch is more than worth it.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
But for a prod environment, update a few machines immediately, poke them with sticks, then upgrade any other public facing machines ASAP. If nothing goes belly up, then you can update your redundant or otherwise non-public facing machines.
Say what? I work in a shop with extensive Solaris and Linux installation, and run several personal Linux boxes as well. They all have vi. None of them, as far as I know, and I checked several, have Emacs. This was not a conscious decision for any of them: it's just the way the hosts installed (although on my personal boxes, I would've installed vi had it not installed by itself). Who won the war?
I'm running Debian sid with a nice KDE 5 desktop and I install updates pretty much every day.
It's surprisingly stable, I haven't had anything seriously break in years.
The last small trouble was the KDE 4 -> KDE 5 migration where the package manager was throwing errors left and right, but everything still worked and it fixed itself after a few days.
On the other hand my phone runs Android 2.3.6 and I don't think Samsung is going to let me update that any time soon.
That's because you work with the wrong people.
Still running Windows for Workgroups 3.11....
MS word 2.0 works just fine!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The answer is simple: hipsters don't design car user interfaces, but they do "design" software user interfaces.
It may be difficult to believe these days, but for quite some time, from the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s, software UIs were quite consistent on each major platform. Almost all Windows apps looked the same on any given version of Windows. Almost all Mac apps looked the same on any given version of Mac OS. Even on X, where there was no standard toolkit, at least a Motif-like theme was offered by most toolkits. There was even superficial similarity across these very different platforms, where the UIs consisted of very similar components, even if the appearance differed.
The important thing to remember is that all of that software predated the influx of hipsters into the computing industry. The hipsters flooded in starting around 2005, which corresponds exactly to the decline in user interface consistency. After a few years of work, these hipsters left us with UI disasters like all of modern web design (especially Slashdot Beta), Chrome, Firefox 4 and later, GNOME 3, and Windows 8.
Hipsters care only about the appearance of the UI. The usability of the software is not a concern to them. The appearance is what they deem to look "good", of course. So if, as a user, you find that the software looks bad and is difficult to use, then the hipsters insist that you are wrong and they are right.
Gedit is the best example I've seen of how the hipster approach to "design" can totally destroy a software user interface. Gedit, which is nothing more than a simple Notepad-like text editor, went from having consistent, usable interface to having this terrible farce of a user interface. That's right, they managed to fuck up the user interface of a text editor that badly!
At least the auto industry, in general, has kept these hipsters away from the physical dashboard. Yes, they have screwed up some of the software for in-car screens, but at least that functionality is non-critical.
You are all cows. Cows say moo. MOOOOOOO! MOOOOOOOO! Moo cows MOOOOOOO! Moo say the cows. YOU COWS!!
.
Version updates:
.
Security and other interim updates:
I think one of my computers, I was updating XP once a month. I stopped when SP2 created problems.
This one, since XP is already done, can't anymore. But otherwise, once a month. I still try to update my antivirus monthly. It's on the frozen partition of my machine. I use Deep Freeze.
I'm a Gentoo user!
They'd install a Beta when threaten to kill us when something didn't work.
Normally your trolls are tedious and lame - and I say that as a Democrat.
But that line was funny.
For my currently installed OS's (Mac OS 10.10 and Windows 7) I usually wait to do an update until it's been out for at least a day to see who in the tech pundit world is freaking out, or posting that it eats all of your files. If there's no noticeable uproar, I assume it's probably safe. For a new OS releases, I generally skip every other one. So, Windows went from XP to 7, Mac OS went from 10.6 to 10.8 to 10.10. I like to give the big boys time to correct their mistakes with whatever newfangled crap they tried to fix (that wasn't broken) each time they release a major "upgrade".
Uh, both?
Even if not it's about 3 words into the command prompt away assuming you've got internet connectivity.
There's a big difference between how you treat your desktops and your servers.
I wanted a change of pace and moved from embedded stuff on Linux to iOS development. So my desktop is basically always the latest OS X version.
I still have Linux servers running for OwnCloud and my personal website, and that's all Debian Stable. But given that it's Stable, I always update to the latest.
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Still running OSX 10.6.8 -- an OS version ca. July 2011
Isn't broken in the sense that anything about it significantly impedes what I use the computer for; anything that was really crappy -- like Safari -- has been replaced with something that worked better.
Ergo, no need to "fix" it.
I have more interesting things to do with my time than adopt change for the sake of change.
There's a great deal positive that can be said for a stable OS environment, not the least of which is that software which I develop for it will work for more people than software that utilizes functionality only available from a later version of the OS. Speaking for myself, I view a statement about any application of the general form "requires late version of/latest OS" as an abject failure of the developer to think of the users.
That's not to say that others aren't, or shouldn't be interested in the latest OS version-- it's just that I am not, and that addresses the question that was asked.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
From Windows 3.11 for Workgroups I went to Win 95, straight to Windows 2000, and then straight to Windows 7. Okay, maybe not on the same computer ;p
98SE, XP SP2, and Vista made brief appearances on other boxes but I replaced them ASAP.
Wish this got more time on slashdot.
The 60% of the geography of the United States that does not have high-speed internet, or has low-speed data with data caps and no other options, NEVER get to update operating systems.
While no one should think they are entitled to high-speed internet, the fact is that outside large cities u.s. connectivity is just about the worst on the planet.
Many in rural areas can't even update an OS to a new version since everyone changed updates to be online-based.
Back in the days of physical media, we would just order a new version of the OS on disk. This is why I left Windows after Win2000 and went to Macs - OS on DVD's for less than $20 shipped to your home. For a while, Mac was the only way if you could not download. Well, you know what happened after Snow Leopard - no more Mac media.
In our small town of 530, there are 5 people with WIndows 7, because it came on the cheap pc/laptop they bought. A few still use Vista, 3 of us also have Mac Snow Leopard, and the rest of us have WinXP.
None of us have the 'internet' to update anything, so we don't. Our pc's still work as good as they did when we got them though.
We all run Ad blockers to minimize the misuse of our connections.
When you have little internet connection and use little of the internet, you don't seem to ever get viruses and malware though. A great trade-off.
Running some form of bleeding-edge Linux, these days Fedora. Updates available most days.
As the title says....
Nope. Every distro I've seen (although I'll admit I haven't made a business of surveying them) installs vi by default but not Emacs.
I can install JOE the same way. So obviously JOE has won the editor wars.
Some things interest some people; other things interest other people. Sometimes there is overlap. Here on slashdot, considering the age, stability, and desirability of one OS version as related to another is quite topical in terms of the issues the site generally is understood to cover.
Perhaps you should wander off and find a story you are interested in. No need to read the ones that don't provoke an interest, you know. You do know that, right?
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
On my phone? Whenever my provider pushes an update.
On my computer? Only when my current OS isn't doing something I need it to do.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I update Ubuntu on my laptop as soon as s new version comes out, my desktop a week later (just in case). My phones and tablets I update as soon as a new version of Android becomes available for it. As rooted phones don't always ota very well, I update them manually.
As for the microwave and the refrigerator, I update them immediately, but fortunately, that never happens. I sincerely wish I could update my cats. They're 17 years old, they still run on their first OS version, which is getting a bit worn out. When they jump on my desk to be close to me, they don't make it and fall back off, managing to grab my bare elbow with one or two nails and holding on to it.
As for myself, I did one upgrade, which is sufficient for now.
no, I don't have a sig
God, really! There is a much bigger story already in progress
Yeah, we know. There was already a Slashdot submission about it earlier today.
Server: Latest with 1 week after patches released unless security mandated. This way let's see what else breaks.
Laptop/Desktop: Latest Windows with the above caveat. Apple update to the latest, no need to wait, apple patches so rarely. No Linux desktop/laptop (Who does that anymore?)
Phone/Mobile: Latest, always. Chances are if it breaks it's because of some rare use case some idiot did doing something equally stupid.
Gaming Consoles: Latest, do it, patch everything ASAP, go beta here for nifty new features!
Wheel of Time: Book by Book and Sumview (summary review) Bigdady92 style: http://bigdady92.blogspot.com/
I, personally, am still using Windows 7 on all of my desktops because I don't want to upgrade (not a fan of 8/8.1). My work laptop however runs Windows 7, 8.1, and Linux Mint 17.
I update Windows when updates come out.
I update Linux Mint when I feel like it. Ranges from 2 weeks to a month. But I don't do any upgrades (17 -> 18) except when going from one LTS to another. Often I simply do a fresh install of the new version. But I do have one VM still running Mint 13 because I just didn't feel much of a need to go to 17. So when Mint 21 come out then I'll ditch the Mint 13 VM.
My phone runs Android 5.1.1. When a new version comes out I install it whenever I can fit it in my schedule. Typically it ranges from immediately after I find out to within a week or two.
I, as a general rule, keep things up to date on what is the latest public "final/release/RTM/whatever". I'm not into beta testing, running non long-term-support, or being a guinea pig except when I feel like seeing what the new hotness is all about. Even then, I run in a VM.
I've kind of taken the attitude at home that having the latest isn't all that important. I'll get around to it when I get around to it. Automatic updates make things much easier to schedule into my life (like with Windows), but I've been doing IT stuff long enough to not really be interested in spending much of my life just updating things.
I used to be very aggressive with upgrading and updating. But I figured out there are other things in life that are much more important than having every single computer system I own running the latest.
I promise you that when you are on your death bed you won't be fretting that one time you didn't upgrade to Windows 8 for 6 months. You'll be asking yourself why you spent so much of your time doing things that really didn't matter a whole lot.
Summoning APK requires you say his name three times. Just like you would summon Beetleguise.
So, no.
I let my Linux Mint desktop slide way out of the support envelop while I waited for PC-BSD to become a viable replacement. I had a single FreeBSD machine running ZFS as my server, which had been rock solid, but I'd never run a BSD desktop before. Then in a single week it was "BSD everywhere" on my home network.
I embrace change on my own terms (which is not change caused by the Gnome developers becoming bored of their own architecture, or Canonical deciding that tablets are the new shit). PC-BSD features boot environments. This amounts to an "undo" key for your operating system. Batch patch? Nuke the fucker.
I can temporize for years, then jump in with both boots if the time seems right.
It's one of the worst things about computing culture that we still collectively tolerate: the notion that capability upgrades are welded at the hip to work flow "innovation". Install a new OS, you're guaranteed to get a mixture of both.
I'd vastly prefer the tick-tock model as practised by Intel (or the alternating new airframe / new engine model as practised by Boeing) where releases that muck with the established user interface change no underlying features / capabilities at all (so the only reason anyone installs the GUI refactor release is because you actually want to partake in the bling rebinding).
Hopefully BSD won't someday lose its mind like Linux did, in which your trusty tighty-whities suddenly becomes a full-body support corset (with no-one asked). Personally, I can handle the change from tighty-whities to rc.d boxer shorts just fine, thank you very much.
I run Gentoo on my primary machines. Any guesses?
Specifically, Debian testing with unstable and/or experimental packages if I desire a specific feature and deem them stable enough. People who talk about leaving new versions to get early problems ironed out have too much faith in software developers in my opinion. I'm amazed at the stuff I've been told they didn't notice or considered a feature. In order to get such things fixed, you need to be engaged, and that means using new versions of stuff so you actually know what's going on. If you're only using old versions then you've only get yourself to blame when developers go down crazy street.
the Emacs vs VI war is over (Emacs won) ...
Yeah I'm thinking not. I've been a Unix sysadmin for over 15 years and I've never worked with a single person who uses Emacs.
I'm a Unix systems programmer and administrator and I routinely use both Emacs and Vi depending on the task. Vi is universally available out of the box and is really good for small, quick things while I prefer Emacs for larger, longer edits and development, especially on complex things with many files.
People get too cranked up over "this vs. that" when it really boils down to using the most appropriate tool for the task - that you're competent with. Emacs is a much more capable and sophisticated tool, but comes with a much higher learning curve. I've been using Emacs (and Vi) since the 1980s, and am more productive on most of my tasks using Emacs. That said, using it to edit a few lines in the hosts file is like trying to kill a mosquito with a sledgehammer.
Emacs and Vi both win when used appropriately.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
to update, I update.
..about fucking never. A critical mass of people have noticed that NOT installing the latest and "greatest" that Microsoft has to offer didn't cause their computers to self-destruct. Application developers have noticed. Hell, even Microsoft seems to have noticed. The hidden fear-based incentive to upgrade when MS says so, is gone.
Not only is hardware good enough now - the OS (Windows XP and 7) is, too.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
In Arch Linux, operating system updates you
That depends entirely on what's on the device I'm updating.
My phone has basically no important information and the entire thing is backed up in 3 different locations. I only update it when I absolutely have to because being without it if it bricks during the update is a nightmare, and most updates change the way the phone works and just end up irritating me. I don't know anyone personally that's ever had their phone remotely hacked, and even if they did... so what?
My work computer? It gets updated every night. There's a team of people that handle that.
My home computer? Well, MSFT is involved... that used to auto-update until they came out with that "upgrade to windows 10!" notification. Now I don't trust their updater at all and updates are turned off permanently. I'll update when I need to.
Linux installs stable updates on its own. Never had a problem.
Websites and things? Again, depends on the content. I've got a Teamspeak server that's been running on an EC2 Instance for years and I'm never updating that.
I use Ubuntu, and I keep my laptop up-to-date with the latest version. I do not generally go for the Beta versions, unless reviews say that it is stable enough. Usually performance and stability improve significantly between versions. On servers, I keep the latest LTS version, and install security updates regularly.
Coke screwed the pooch when it switched over to New Coke and immediately switched back to Coke Classic in the 1980's. I switched over to Pepsi and never looked back. No debate here.
The beta/nightly guys are doing it because it's their hobby. This is entertainment for them. Like the guys who just analyze the hell out of game graphics instead of actually playing the games. These guys are always complaining about how their stuff isn't working right, but they love it.
If using the OS as a tool to get things done is your main concern then you back off to what gets you the new features you need/want.
If you're a luddite and afraid of being kicked out of your habits then you never update until hardware death forces you, even though you're missing a lot of upgrades that could help you do things better and faster. Some of these guys admit it, which is fair enough (my Mom doesn't want to have to relearn), and the others have endless lame excuses.
I used to be one of the first guys, now I'm one of the middle guys. Debian testing dist-upgrade, Windows 8.1 with Metro stripped out, Android 5.1.1. It just works without being bleeding edge. Okay, Win10 on one non-critical machine, for my inner child.
Actually, vim won the war, not vi.
signed,
Mr. Actually
Navy Replies, we haven't updated since Aug 24 2001.
I re-image mine from an image I made, stored on a server in the middle of the house. Every time the machine boots, it re-images the OS image on the local hard drive, thoroughly destroying anything else that might have been on the disk. When an update to the main image is necessary, I make a new one.
I create those once about every six months, unless there's an emergency patch like Heartbleed. This works on all of the computers in my home. Wife and daughter go through the same process on their machines.
Boot to Ghost, install os, play, run, do whatever. In the event of a virus, it's short lived. When I attended Berkeley, this was the way they had set up their computer lab. I remember, at the time, being intrigued by the setup.
Now that I have myself, my wife, and a five year old all using machines around the house (nine distinct pc's), I have a practical use application for this.
Since I implemented this about five years ago, we have had virtually no problems with it. The drawback of course is that it's a lot easier to do if your machines, desktops, laptops, etc, all match. Learned that one the hard way, but good now.
My machine gets shut down about once a week. My daughter is always letting the battery burn down on her laptop, so she images more frequently than anyone else in the house. My wife is also at about once a week.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
DOS 6.2 was good. 6.22 wasn't exciting, so I stopped there. Has anything notable changed?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Meh, they both suck compared to Brief.
Coke screwed the pooch when it switched over to New Coke and immediately switched back to Coke Classic in the 1980's. I switched over to Pepsi and never looked back. No debate here.
Sadly Coke Classic is NOT the same Coke that existed before New Coke. Coke used to keep me awake overnight and used to burn as I swallowed. Coke Classic is not the original Coke which again was not the same as the original original Coca-Cola which contained cocaine. And why is Coke Classic devoid of caffeine when there are super-excessive caffeinated drinks sold yet we are told it was removed from Coca-Cola because it "is bad for the children." Newsflash...children should not be drinking soft drinks as though it is the modern-day water. Get off my lawn you damn hipsters! [ grumble, grumble ]
I have always installed important windows updates as they are released, on all of my systems. This has broken my windows installations 0 times. I can count on one hand the amount of my customers' machines where a specific KB caused a BKOD, and they were all Vista x86. I have run into several windows 8.x updates that fail, but are uninstalled during system restart. So here I am, wondering why so many technically minded individuals have such a staunch fear or resentment for updates.
It depends on whether a machine is one on which I do work for which I get paid, or not. My main workstation, which is the source of my income, warrants a very conservative update approach. I was very slow in leaving XP, and with a mature, stable Windows 7 environment, I'm in no hurry at all to adopt another version of Windows. Yeah, like everyone else I've seen the popups inviting me to upgrade to Windows 10. You first. I can't afford to be down while I figure out why things aren't working or figuring out where Microsoft hid certain buttons this time.
I will sometimes install a new version on a spare machine just to see where technology is heading, and acquaint myself with what I will eventually have to deal with, but that's a lower priority. I'm not really interested in spending half my life doing upgrades and figuring out what broke.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
True, if you're want to split hairs.
alias ds="sudo aptitude update; sudo aptitude install debsecan \`secan-update\` dpkg aptitude debian-archive-keyring"
function secan-update() /etc/default/debsecan
{
.
debsecan --only-fixed --format packages --suite $SUITE
}
When I was younger, it was fun and novel to update my OS everytime something "new" came out, so I would. I spent a lot of my weekends and weeknights doing this. Hell, sometimes I would completely wipe my machine just to try a new OS or two for fun.
However, once I actually got into the workforce, I found I valued a stable platform a whole lot more than exploring "new" OS features (which are really never that "new" anyways). It got a lot less fun to spend all weekend trying to get something to work right, only to be left with a semi-stable environment that I couldn't use for work on Monday morning... Installing, re-installing or upgrading OSes gets old pretty quick when you need a stable environment to work in.
Now I get annoyed if they drop support for my installed OS less than 3 years after I installed it.
Now get off my lawn and quit waving those Windows 10 and Mint 17 install disks at me!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61WVJ_q5KIQ&spfreload=10
Automated builds with automated testing happen daily
New changes -> dev (any old time)
dev -> automated tests -> testing (every hour or so)
testing -> more automated tests -> qa (every hour or so)
qa -> final batch of tests -> prod (every eight hours)
Since it is Gentoo managed in git, if something isn't caught by an automated test at one stage the pipe can be stopped, the problem resolved, a test to identify the issue written, and then the pipe turned back on.
So, in effect, we upgrade 3 times daily, but because it is incremental, we never have major migrations or updates that require weeks of effort and testing.
I also have a friend who upgrades everything all the time. "the new phone's amazing" either means that the "old phone sucks" -- which makes no sense since the old phone was "amazing" when it was new too -- or that the new marketing is amazing -- which makes sense because the old marketing was also amazing.
There are countly amazing things that can be added to anything. Some new features are just really impressive. But being impressive doesn't mean that it improves my life at all.
A frisbee that can be thrown over a half-mile is really cool (and called an aerobe, by the way, and I love them) but I don't have a park that large, nor would I enjoy playing catch with a friend that far away.
Similarly, most new OS features might be neat, but they don't actually change my life at all. Perhaps the best example I can give is with regard to office/productivity suites.
Between word, excel, wordperfect, lotus 123, and-if-you-thought-wordperfect-was-dating-myself wordstar, I've been writing essays and poems and business documents for close to thirty years. Before the computer "clipboard", before 3d text-art, before pivot tables, before ribbon bars, before toolbars, before menu bars, before arrow-keys, even before the mouse. In the end, the business documents that I produce today, to earn a living, aren't any more sophistimicated than the ones that I producted 25 years ago, early in my career. Believe it or not, youngin's, business invoices and quotes and proposals existing before XML. So none of these new features actually provide any additional benefit to my life. They only change the way I create the very same invoice -- whether for dot-matrix, inkjet, laser, PDF, or e-mail.
How many new OS features actually add to my life? The answer is: none. So I upgrade my OS when I upgrade my computer. When is that? When my computer is too old to play the almost-latest games -- because games are entertainment, and entertainment is my sole purpose in life.
The OS is very definitely secondary.
All that said, there have been OS upgrades that have improved my life. Win 95 let me switch between games and work faster, which meant that I could play more games. Vista let me have more pixels so I could work more at a time and keep the tv playing in the corner at the same time. Win 7 added nothing. Win 8 added nothing. Win 10 would let me work cross-device better, if my work were capable of being done anywhere but a desk, but it ain't.
I tend to leave the OS on that came with the hardware; Laptop came with XP? It stays with XP.
Desktop came with Windows 7 Pro? It stays with 7 Pro.
In the days when I still built machines myself, I would upgrade the OS as the hardware upgraded.
That's the OS however. Patches? Tend to not bother with exceptions for things that fix actual problems that affect me or add new features.
Me and my brother own identical Thinkpad X230's with SSD's. Mine is the same as when it came out of the box, his has been fully upgraded; Win7 patches, Lenovo system updates, the works.
Mine boots 10 seconds faster, gets to the desktop a whole minute faster and feels generally more responsive.
My Gentoo boxes, one I stopped updating when KDE3.5 fell out the tree while I figured out a solution, but left it too late and now it's stuck- Physically impossible to upgrade it because the dependency yarn is now too tangled.
My new one, I sync and update pretty much every day to try and keep it afloat!
Gentoo's update policy is sink or swim!
...but wrong
Personally, I mostly stick to release versions. I may try a beta on an unimportant computer, just to get a sense of what's coming, but OS betas make more sense if you're a developer trying to make sure your app will work on the new OS. As a user, or even an IT pro, you're mostly wasting your time.
Myself, I'll install the new version of OSX, Windows, and iOS as soon as I can get a gold master. If it's going to cause problems, then I want to experience those problems before my clients experience them. I know enough to manage with a few bugs, or roll back to an earlier release if I need to. For everyone else, I recommend that they wait at least a couple of months to see whether any big problems emerge. In the mean time, I'll recommend installing the update on a computer or two so that they can test that their apps word, and see how they like the new OS. I always recommend holding off, however, for any important machines. At least for a month or two.
New Coke was a scam to hide the change from sugar to HFCS. It was never intended to 'stick'.
I don't update my OS, ever.
The overlords living at 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, CA 95014 are the ones updating the OS for me.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Server? Get it right and apply only security updates. Work desktop? Change it up every once in a while as long as stability isn't sacrificed. Don't spend so much time tweaking that you lose a lot of time actually doing your work. Home workstation? Play with it. Try things out. See which updates are worth putting elsewhere. Game system? Make sure it supports the games you want to play and isn't an easy security target. Work phone? Get security updates, but don't update it to odd things that your IT department is going to hate you for. Personal phone? Well, who cares as long as it's as dependable as you need it to be?
I tend to run an emerge --sync and apply most package updates every day or two. In my experience this helps keep things running smoothly. The kernel, however, only gets updated every month or two, or when I become aware of a kernel vulnerability that potentially might affect my system (rare but not unknown). Same basic procedure with my work PC: Windows Updates every few days, or sooner if I learn of a critical (but patched) vulnerability. Obviously on a mission-critical production system my policy would be different, but the Gentoo system is for my own use and would not cripple me if it went down because of an update, although that has never happened. (I've broken X during the modularization project, for not R-ing the F-ing M . . that's the worst that's happened to me yet.) The 'Doze system at work would be a royal pain to rebuild since it has, and needs, multiple versions of various Microsoft and other dev tools. But it would not be crippling either; worst case is I'd borrow a VM and use that while rebuilding mine. I don't keep anything on the HD that isn't also on the network in a Git repo or file share someplace else.
Nonaggression works!
The sole reason I'm running Ubuntu 12.04 LTS is the guarantee of 5 years of not having to yet again figure out the pain of worthless UI updates. Sure, I had to swallow Unity... But I only had to swallow it once for a period of hopefully a full five years, and after the first year I had figured out enough workaround for its pain points that I can now live with it (almost) happily. My time is precious. Knowing a UI well allows me to be efficient with it. Updating my OS and having to relearn a new UI is thus twice costly, and not worth it unless it's getting me massive other benefits.
If I'm having a problem, then I ride the bleeding edge until the mainstream has a fix, then run that. Otherwise, boring is stable.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
My last remaining Windows machine, which is used for photo and video editing in bursts during certain times of the year (I'm an amateur photographer/videographer with seasonal subjects) a self-built i7-3770k machine, was updated following every editing session until recently. I'd finish what I was doing, allow Windows 7 to apply any needed updates, and then shut the machine off until it was needed again. The machine is now running a Windows Insider Build of Windows 10, because I needed to know if several somewhat esoteric and out-of-date applications for my other hobby, ham radio, were going to run properly. I keep good backups, however; this includes a full backup of all my photos to Amazon. My Apple devices are updated as soon as Apple releases an update, with two exceptions. My MacBook Pro, iPad, backup iPhone (usually used for timelapse video now) and AppleTVs are updated immediately when an iOS or Mac OS X update is available. I also update my AirPort Extremes on the same policy. Exception one is that my current phone is updated a few hours later, once I notice no major issues with the iPad and old iPhone. Sometimes I wait a day or two if I know I'm going to need my phone no matter what. Exception two is that I'm currently running beta iOS 9 on my old phone, because I felt adventurous. None of my machines or devices are used for production work I'm paid for, my employer handles maintenance of my single-device work computer, so I can afford to take the updates regularly.
I have my production computer, where, once everything is stable, it stays at that OS with security updates as needed. I then have my testing machine, where I hold the mentality of, "If it ain't broke, don't stop tinkering." That machine has been offline for about 2 years due to me not having time to tinker, but that's changing shortly.
"Don't meddle in the affairs of a patent dragon, for thou art tasty and good with ketchup." ~ohcrapitssteve
I never upgrade an OS to a new major release (i.e. WindowsXP to WIndows7) on old hardware. The new OS will consume more resources so it's better to buy modern hardware for it if you absolutely need features in a newer OS. I suspect the vast majority of people upgrade just to keep up with or stay ahead of the Jones.
For my laptop (Mac OS X): update as soon as updates are available, unless it's a major update (i.e. a new OS version, not just a patch). If it's major, I'll usually wait a bit and see how it goes in the wild with early adopters, first. For my desktop (Arch Linux): Arch uses a rolling release model, so I do a daily check on what's available and then decide if I want to apply those updates immediately or wait. This depends on what is being updated. If it's the kernel or Xorg I might wait a bit. For minor stuff I usually go ahead and update right away. For my phone (Android): At the moment I'm running Cyanogenmod. I don't flash new nightlies very often; I tend to stick with one I find stable. I do like to keep fairly current, though. I apply app updates as soon as they're available. For my tablet (Android): It's a Nexus version and I never bothered rooting it or anything, I just get the updates as they come.
Personal machines:
Home laptop (primary, I also tend to work on it) - I stick with Windows 7. Obviously it is the last sane/usable version of Windows. Skipped Vista entirely. I always tend to use the Good Windows release (95, 98SE, 2000, XP, now 7). Looking forward to install Windows 10 as it looks quite sane and 7 is getting old. I apply patches automagically. With Windows it happens that some patches break stuff but it is easy enough to uninstall them. Also I run Secunia Psi to notify me about outdated apps and it also can update them automagically which is convinient.
Home Macbook (secondary, for fun) - I stick with Mavericks since I don't like the new flat look and basically it still works and apps are working so not a big deal for me. I install patches as they show up.
Home server (router, network functions, VMs for development) - Arch Linux - it is a rolling release distro so I just upgrade everything from time to time when I have security related updates pending. It works - never had broken for me.
Raspberry Pi - I use few for dedicated projects (media player, dedicated retro gaming system). When I set it up and it works I tend not to update it since I don't see the point.
Now for work computers we have strong policy. Workstations and laptops have frozen Windows version (licensing obviously, compatibilty), we push all updates via WSUS on which we accept them. We test updates on selected group of machines (IT staff) before pushing them to all. For servers we also have standardised versions (Windows, RHEL/CentOS). We roll any major upgrade through change management with backup/recovery plans in place (VM snapshots, application backups prior to upgrade i dedicated time windows etc.).
Because it's Read-Only Memory.
(I am old enough to remember using UV lamps on EPROM, but the programming voltage was much higher than the operating voltage, so you had to take them out of the socket before programming them)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
I update my OS every day with 'pacman -Syu'.
Rolling release is the way to go.
"I like to update my devices to the latest bleeding edge builds during peak operation hours and when major production changes occur." - Newbie CTO
30% off web hosting. Coupon code "SLASHDOT".
Trailing edge adopter.
I rarely have to change my workflow or update pas for a fee that were already working just fine.
If I "HAVE TO" update, just buy another parallel device.
iPhone on 6.1, Mac on 7.2 and 10.4.11, and I have modern versions of them too. They get less work done!
JJ
If you mean upgrading to a new version - will do it on rare occassion, either need new features, or the old version didn't work so well. Maybe once per machine. If you means applying patches, then only once when the new OS is installed, then never. In any case, all my OS's are long since out of support anyway.
I do a lot of work on office machines, computers, scanning equipment, high end printers. 30 years ago, you never had software problems, it was all hardware problems. Relay units, switches, cams, clutches...now, there are times I don't even get my screwdriver out of my toolbag. Everything is dependent on the operating system. I'm not one to rush right out and update the software in my machines. I'll let them go a week or two, unless a specific update corrects a problem a customer is currently having. I go by the old line, "just because its new, doesn't make it better, it just means it's new". Sometimes updates break other things, so I'll wait and let someone else be the guinea pig.
Beside security updates that I typically apply right away, I usually only update my systems during summer. The rest of the year, I am too busy and too depend on my systems to work to take the chance of breaking a key feature.
Point in case, I upgrade my laptop to the recent Debian release a few weeks ago, and I am encountering many bugs related to the networking and audio stack. So I'll have a good month to figure them out.
"In chess, the pawns move first."
Early adopters get to do the QC on their own time for free.
OpenVMS 8.4 came out and I got curious so I decided I'd see how it goes and re-install (I still have the older 7.2 on tape so we're good for back-out strategy). So.. re-installed, sysgen/autogen', installed some ECO patch sets we're good to go. Pity.. broke my six year's of uptime needing to reboot.
Now, get off my lawn!
I apply security updates as soon as they are available- or as soon as I find the time to do so (ie within 24 hours). When it comes to upgrades I avoid them like the plague and then have my assistant take care of it. It's not a lack of ability or dislike of change. Heck I'm on Fedora at the moment and have to upgrade often. It's purely me being lazy and there rarely being any serious benefits of offer.
On Linux:
Anytime an update is made available, it's installed as soon as possible (may have to wait till I come back home). Problematic exploits (e.g. Flash) cause the corresponding software to be disabled (e.g. Flash in FF) until a fix comes up (usually on the day after). Most computers run Linux over here, which makes updating easier.
On Android:
App updates are immediately applied; it seems Google services updates parts of the OS, but I'm not sure. The base OS never gets updated (my phone is not mainstream, I got tired of paying more for phones than for computers). I'm willing to try Linux, but so far no system became available in my vicinity. There's Firefox, which I suppose is Linux, but I must check how easily it can be upgraded and the best hardware available for it was so-so. I have hopes for the next hi-quality phone being readied. I'd like to have better control of the OS...
On Windows:
Updates are usually applied if the user is on good mood (not very frequent). The computer is only destined for games, no serious use these days.
As for the mad fucks that keep inventing new icons. I wish horrible things happen to them. Its bad enough having to learn about Icons when I learned to read perfectly well over 60 years ago. Why do they not keep the ones they have invented? Are they smoking something I should know about?
I assume that you mean whole-new icons for an existing function rather than a stylistic bent on an existing, well-known icon design. The problem is that they're increasingly hiring visual artists, rather than UI engineers, because they think something avant-garde will help sell more product.
What I really hate is "Ribbon" used by many Microsoft Office products. I learned on Office 4.3. Just about every version of Office until the introduction of "Ribbon" had a similar interface, and that interface had three redundant components, quick-use icons on toolbars, drop-down menus, and keyboard combinations. Ribbon threw a lot of that in the trash and I'd rather use Libreoffice or Openoffice now.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Miss when it was simple and only took 45-60 minutes to compile my bbs turbo pascal code on 20mb hard drive!
the Emacs vs VI war is over (Emacs won)
Nope. B-)
When I got my first UNIX box, back in the '80s, it had two megabytes and did NOT have demand paging, which would have allowe a larger virtual image to run. That was too small to compile emacs. (The joke at the time was that the name was really an acronym for Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping. B-) )
So I learned VI. Then I used it VERY heavily for years, on the original conferencing system whose software was later ported to The Well. After that a number of editing idioms were "wired into" my hindbrain and I could do the things I wanted to do with text very efficiently with vi.
As machines improved I tried emacs several times. Each time I found that the stuff I depended on took about 1.5 to 3 times as many keystrokes. This was too much of a penalty to pay for the handful of features it offered.
At one point I considered going to it but running in a vi emulator mode and gradually migrating to native idioms. But I discovered that, kitchen sink that it was, it had TWO vi emulator modes, each with distinct deviations from vi (alias "bug sets"). With one vi emulator, even with substantial shortcomings, I might still have made the shift. With two there was no easy way to chose, so I didn't bother.
Now I'm using vim, which is close enough. One of my regular colleagues is an emaxian rather than a vithian and we get along just fine. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
OSX - I wait a week
Windows - wait for Service pack 1 + 2 weeks.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
I will update:
- Desktops (work and home) when it needs to.
- Phone if it has an update then I'll install it.
- Network router firmware when it comes out.
I sometimes update
- Programs - usually only to fix a particular flaw
- Dev Environments - but only after a project. Learned that the hard way.
I never update:
- My NAS. It's internal-facing only and does everything I need it to smoothly. Also, updating it isn't a 'click a button' procedure. I also don't care if some hacker deletes my programs, music or videos. I have offline backups for a reason.
Wont... 'Cause I want to split hairs.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
DOS Shell
Windows 3.1
Windows 3.11 for Workgroups
Windows 95
Windows XP
Windows 7
As for my mobile phone OS, I upgrade it every time my phone dies and I have to buy a new one...
Ubuntu 14.04 LTS on company servers. I run an update (apt-get) every Sunday. Same OS on my PC. I don't know when we'll upgrade to 16.04 LTS. (Patches yes. upgrades no. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.)
I only recently updated my PC from XP to Windows 7, because for the first time XP wasn't able to fulfil my needs. I wanted to play Elite: Dangerous, and while I could've messed around getting the latest DirectX and graphics drivers working under XP, I decided it was finally the time to move on... to 7. And I'll probably stay with 7 for many years to come, so long as it works for me.
Windows, to me, is just a tool to get things done, and so long as it does its job, I have precisely zero other interest in it. Linux is more or less the same too, I'm well over switching distros to see what they're like every month or two. Other operating systems are different though, and I will update my Amiga OS / MorphOS machines as soon as an update appears because they're far more interesting to me OS-wise.
That reminds me, I should really update my Haiku installation...
If you've got time to try every new build of an OS then you've got less time to actually work. If you're spending a lot of time tinkering with your OS on whatever device then the tinkering becomes the primary purpose of that device. I see that as more than a little wasteful. This is for end user, work machines, not servers of course. If you're not installing patches 24/7 on the workhorses then you're vulnerable. Ultimately I can (and do) get done everything I need in an expedient fashion on Windows 7 or Windows 8. I see no reason to update to Windows 8 on some of my machines when none of the new features will improve my efficiency at my job, it's just a process that will take several hours that I could have spent being actually productive. Those machines I have with Windows 8 I spent about half an hour getting the UI the way I like it (read: the same as Windows 7 with Aero disabled) and that's it, ready to run.
I update when it's necessary and proven to not ruin my machines. I'll run the "risk" of zero day security flaws for a few more days. I've been bitten in the past with machines being close to unusable after an automatic bad patch and if there's one thing guaranteed to lose me the confidence of my clients it's a missed deadline.
"Sorry, my computer broke and I couldn't fix it until today when a new patch came out" is not something people see as a valid excuse from a software developer who is supposed to be an expert.
What's xnu?
Nuttun' much, what's Snow with xnu?
I only do security updates and out of those I only do the ones that apply to my machine (i.e. I don't need security updates to RAID arrays on my work laptop). I like it working just fine, the patches tend to break stuff in the background either unintentionally or intentionally and I don't like having to do yet another work around for something that worked before it got patched.
Hipsters, turn signals, text editors...potato (you know the meme) squirrel!
To answer the original post, I update regularly for security flaws. Design changes in interface usually makes things worse for me, but things change and I have to adapt to survive.
I think the reason interfaces are so bad lately is that computers are no longer fringe devices for technical people with organized thoughts. They are increasingly aimed at nontechnical people. The much hated office ribbon helps those who don't really know what they want to do, but rely on the computer to try second guess them for assistance. Those of us who know exactly the command/feature we want and how to use it are now in the minority. Thankfully there are still keyboard shortcuts.
formating boot on windows on a weekly base and linux on any new LTS , doing nightly on android , pretty much all automated so no real work for me ( well beyond installing a pxe server and scripts to dl required iso and patches )
I try to get the ppa for the programs that I run, and I run apt-get update/upgrade daily. New kernels are available outside the repositories.
Auto updates / patches as they come along. Preference for LTS builds like Linux Mint for stability. New full version of commercial OS when I get a new computer. (I'm on Windows 7 right now and won't upgrade until I replace my laptop in a couple years. Windows is necessary for my job.)
I think the last time I intentionally bought and installed a new version of a commercial OS on a computer I already owned was when I jumped from OS9 to OSX on a clamshell iBook.
I guess the other time was a year or so ago when WinXP went EOL, and I switched that old desktop to Linux Mint. I suppose that technically counts as an upgrade, but I didn't purchase a new OS, and I didn't upgrade to a newer version of Windows.
Windows: whenever I get around to it unless there is a security critical bug patch OR I am having a particular problem but in that case it's more likely to be a hot fix than a standard patch, or possibly a driver update(or downgrade). EXCEPTION: my dell venu 11 pro 7140 I update every time I boot it, since ATM I'm only using windows defender on it as a guinea pig.
Linux/OSX: pretty much similar to windows.
I prefer to let others beta test patches, esp. windows patches given some of the problems that they have had in the not so distant past and even before then.
NOTE: some machines might go months between boots due to limited space/time/logistics ATM, so those machines will be updated on boot.
I am also building a could software, can you pls. do the QA for me and report all the bugs? that will save me some money.
Mod parent up more!
If you use an LTS distro, then stick with its release schedule.
This is currently 3 years for the desktop, and 5 years for servers.
I have been sticking to this schedule and it works really really well!
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
23 years: Ditto.
$ sudo pacman -Syyu
It depends very much on what is being done with the equipment.
Some have never been updated and updating it can get you fired!
Some are updated when new hardware is purchased, but not otherwise unless a definate problem shows up.
(Those are not usually connected to any network or internet.)
Some are updated about two weeks after updates are released, unless zero-day exploits are reported.
A few are updated immediatly. Either for hobbies or as early tests for the other machines. (Or both at once.)