Author Topic: How often should you restart your PC?  (Read 20995 times)

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Offline SpAmRaY

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How often should you restart your PC?
« on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 09:26:04 »
My workstation (Win 7 64bit) at work either works well or crashes a lot so when it works I tend to leave it alone and never restart it. Current uptime is over 33 days.

Just wondering how often you guys think a PC needs to be restarted?

Offline IPT

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #1 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 09:35:18 »
my work PC i usually shut down at the end of the week and restart monday morning.
i know our server doesn't ever get shutdown/restarted unless there's upgrade or planned maintenance.

My home PC i restart prob once every 2-3 weeks.  Mainly because i run windows update once every few weeks and it asks me to restart.
Or nvidia pushes out a new driver that requires a reboot.

Offline Lurch

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #2 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 09:36:03 »
I turn my computer off every night cause I'm cheap.

How often a PC needs to be restarted? I guess that depends on the application.

Our servers @ work are rebooted once a month for updates/maintenance.
« Last Edit: Tue, 28 October 2014, 09:38:12 by Lurch »
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Offline azhdar

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #3 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 09:39:08 »
Personal Desktop , daily because I sleep right next to it .

Work computer : 2 months uptime , don't remember why i restarted it .
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Offline Badwrench

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #4 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 09:57:38 »
I shut down my personal whenever I am not using it.  Boot time with ssd and asrock quick boot is 15 seconds to a usable desktop so it doesnt matter to me.  If I leave it on, between my pc and receiver, my comp room starts to heat up after a couple days. 
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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #5 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 10:26:02 »
The only time I ever restart my machine is after patches have been applied, which is on average once a month after "Patch Tuesday". I don't allow it to restart automatically, I just have it alert me to do so. If I could never reboot my Windows machine I'd be perfectly happy. Makes me appreciate Linux.
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Offline evolveS

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #6 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 10:31:39 »
Whenever they need it after updates and such.

Restarting isn't as painful now that most systems have SSDs.

EDIT: If you don't leave office computers running or asleep when you leave (and your IT group manages updates & restarts), can you just not?  :confused:
« Last Edit: Tue, 28 October 2014, 11:26:47 by evolveS »
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Offline yasuo

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #7 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 10:32:04 »
i hate restart bcs the lappie when booting is very slow :-X :confused:
« Last Edit: Tue, 28 October 2014, 10:58:52 by yasuo »
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Offline Computer-Lab in Basement

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #8 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 10:39:58 »
On average, I'd say I restart my home rig about once a week. Lately it's been a bit more than that, as I've had a few hardware issues...

For work, I have a laptop, so it gets shut down every day when I leave.
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Offline fohat.digs

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #9 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 11:08:15 »
I restart my computer every morning.

For one thing, it is a heat generator, and in the summer you are just making your air conditioner do extra work to overcome it. In the winter that is OK, but it is a very expensive way to heat a room.

PS - I also have to restart every time I want to test a PS/2 keyboard!
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Offline osi

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #10 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 11:09:50 »
Windows gets restarted whenever--Updates for OS, Software, drivers.

Linux box only when I want to do a kernel update!

Offline HoffmanMyster

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #11 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 11:18:48 »
I don't shut my PC off very much.  If I'm home, I'm either using it directly or streaming something from it to another room.  I could shut it off when I go to work, but I usually forget.

Offline noisyturtle

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #12 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 11:49:24 »
I do system and driver updates once a week which is when it gets a reset.

Offline Grendel

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #13 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 12:23:27 »
My workstation (Win 7 64bit) at work either works well or crashes a lot so when it works I tend to leave it alone and never restart it. Current uptime is over 33 days.

Just wondering how often you guys think a PC needs to be restarted?


Once a month during patch-day is usually sufficient. If it's up longer (2-3 months+), restart it before patching to clean up possible memory corruption.
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Offline davkol

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #14 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 13:52:10 »
I turn off my desktop whenever I stop using it, thus it gets about eight-hour uptime a day on average. What would be the point of data encryption otherwise?

My laptop on the other hand goes to sleep, and I reboot it only after huge/critical system updates. My current uptime is five days.

Offline Tym

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #15 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 13:57:05 »
I always turn off my PC when I leave the house, I'm kinda surprised you guys dont? :3 Just an automatic feature for me, especially now I have an SSD with <10 second boot time
unless they have some unforeseeable downside (like they're actually made of cream cheese cunningly disguised as ABS)


Offline MOZ

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #16 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 14:00:08 »
Desktop - About once a month, it's my primary machine as well as home server, so used for streaming as well as downloading new stuff.
Laptop - Every night before I go to sleep, it heats up enough already, don't need it running otherwise.

Offline ChillyVanilly

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #17 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 14:10:44 »
You shouldn't need to restart your computer. If you get it stable enough, you can get uptimes on your workstation like this:


Offline Pliny

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #18 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 14:11:35 »
Interesting thread! My "home server" (Win7) is up 24/7/365, but gets booted every 7-10 days. I always feel it gets a bit wonky after a week up. My Macbook, I just shut the lid when I'm done with it, but I boot it every week also.

And I'll add I run a "tight ship" - not installing every old thing that comes by, cleaning and updating all the time, so I consider the systems "clean." But I still like a fresh start once a week. Maybe it's an old habit from Win95 days  :D

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Offline rowdy

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #19 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 14:15:06 »
Work PC every week or two, usually when it becomes unresponsive or insists on a reboot for whatever flimsy reason.

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Offline SpAmRaY

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #20 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 14:16:10 »
I always turn off my PC when I leave the house, I'm kinda surprised you guys dont? :3 Just an automatic feature for me, especially now I have an SSD with <10 second boot time

For my work PC it stays powered on 24/7 in case I need to remote into it.

Offline Tym

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #21 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 14:16:41 »
For my work PC it stays powered on 24/7 in case I need to remote into it.

Fair point, fair point :)
unless they have some unforeseeable downside (like they're actually made of cream cheese cunningly disguised as ABS)


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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #22 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 16:00:22 »
My servers are too expensive to run 24/7.. i checked the electric bill last month.. NO BUENO...


So.. I only run one of them now..

For my desktop.. I turn it off, because it's no longer my server.

Offline SpAmRaY

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #23 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 16:03:14 »
My servers are too expensive to run 24/7.. i checked the electric bill last month.. NO BUENO...


So.. I only run one of them now..

For my desktop.. I turn it off, because it's no longer my server.

Get you some solar panels and some batteries!

Offline Tym

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #24 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 16:06:51 »
Get you some solar panels and some batteries!
and hook them up to his nipples?

I'm honestly not sure how that would help Ray... :))
unless they have some unforeseeable downside (like they're actually made of cream cheese cunningly disguised as ABS)


Offline SpAmRaY

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #25 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 16:09:43 »
Get you some solar panels and some batteries!
and hook them up to his nipples?

I'm honestly not sure how that would help Ray... :))

To offset the cost of his servers power usage.

Offline rowdy

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #26 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 16:10:14 »
Actually, having just read the title (sorry SpAmRaY!) I guess you should restart your PC when something needs to be installed that is in use and cannot be replaced until the computer is restarted (e.g. a kernel, unless you are running ksplice on Linux), the system hangs, or if there is a fairly significant resource leak or depletion that cannot easily be rectified in other ways.
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Offline Smasher816

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #27 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 16:11:07 »
I shut down my desktop every night. I only restart my laptop if it has some update it needs.

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« Last Edit: Tue, 28 October 2014, 16:13:59 by Smasher816 »

Offline dorkvader

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #28 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 16:35:45 »
I turn my computer off every night cause I'm cheap.

How often a PC needs to be restarted? I guess that depends on the application.

Our servers @ work are rebooted once a month for updates/maintenance.

I hibernate every month becasue I'm cheap.

I restart my windows box about once a week for updates and maint. The linux box usually gets 100-200 days of uptime before I restart it for some reason.

Offline fohat.digs

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #29 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 16:54:49 »
I wonder whether I am living in Bizarro World  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarro_World

You guys act like the "natural state" of a computer is "on" rather than "off" and that it is simply a part of the scenery, rather than a work/recreation appliance for the assistance and/or entertainment of living beings.

Expending energy for no purpose besides waste is merely one aspect, but it is probably not wrong to assume that the "computer being on" also implies an endless connection to the "world-wide-web" where, every type of nastiness resides, relentlessly seeking entrance into the inner sanctum of your essence.

But, I am a weird and paranoid old man who has utterly obsolete concepts of conservation and privacy and minimalism, so just leave me alone and I will do the same for you.

That means: I turn my computer off every night and back on the next day. If it weren't for the wife and kids, I would do the same for the modem and router.
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Offline tp4tissue

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #30 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 16:55:18 »
My servers are too expensive to run 24/7.. i checked the electric bill last month.. NO BUENO...


So.. I only run one of them now..

For my desktop.. I turn it off, because it's no longer my server.

Get you some solar panels and some batteries!

I haven't looked into single panels ,  are they good ? any recs ?

My server chews up 600watt just from being ON, doing NADA.. how many panels is that ?

when I task in, it's ~900 without any gpu load, and ~1000 with gpu load.

Offline dorkvader

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #31 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 17:08:04 »
I wonder whether I am living in Bizarro World  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarro_World

You guys act like the "natural state" of a computer is "on" rather than "off" and that it is simply a part of the scenery, rather than a work/recreation appliance for the assistance and/or entertainment of living beings.

Expending energy for no purpose besides waste is merely one aspect, but it is probably not wrong to assume that the "computer being on" also implies an endless connection to the "world-wide-web" where, every type of nastiness resides, relentlessly seeking entrance into the inner sanctum of your essence.


You can leave your computer on as a space heater for your room and save money by keeping the rest of the apartment at 40 degrees so the pipes don't freeze.

Offline davkol

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #32 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 17:16:23 »
Also, some parts are less prone to failure under constant use (e.g., smaller temperature changes).

Offline Altis

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #33 on: Tue, 28 October 2014, 18:13:11 »
I turn off my desktop pretty much every time I'm done with it. I only sleep it if I know I'm returning within a few hours and want to keep what I have open. <15 seconds to full boot means it doesn't matter to me.

MacBook Air doesn't get shut down as often. Work laptop is shut down at the end of the work day, but I don't have a desk job. It's used on commercial sites. Because it has a really slow and heavily encrypted hard drive, I sleep it dozens of times a day rather than booting from scratch (which takes 2-5 minutes).
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Offline slip84

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #34 on: Thu, 30 October 2014, 10:14:34 »
I turn off my desktop pretty much every time I'm done with it. I only sleep it if I know I'm returning within a few hours and want to keep what I have open. <15 seconds to full boot means it doesn't matter to me.

MacBook Air doesn't get shut down as often. Work laptop is shut down at the end of the work day, but I don't have a desk job. It's used on commercial sites. Because it has a really slow and heavily encrypted hard drive, I sleep it dozens of times a day rather than booting from scratch (which takes 2-5 minutes).
I'm like this for the most part:

  • Gaming rig: SSD equipped, boots in like 7 seconds, powered off when not in use.
  • Surface Pro: SSD equipped, boots nearly instantly, powered off when not in use.
  • Work laptop: Spinning HDD, boots in like two or three minutes to a functional desktop, sleeping when not in use, powered off if not needed for a day or two.
  • Mac mini: Spinning HDD, used daily, put to sleep overnight and when not in use. Just ordered a drive carrier for a second drive and will be swapping in a SSD and will power off when not in use.

If it takes less than a minute to boot and be functional, I shut it down when I'm done. Power savings add up. Especially when you're dealing with a number of machines. I feel guilty having so many, but three of them are "necessary" for my day-to-day life. The Surface Pro is "spare" but it's a stand-in machine for my work laptop. What they gave me is 15.6" and weighs probably like seven or eight pounds and gets about two hours of battery life. It's not too handy for being out and about with work.

Offline dorkvader

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #35 on: Thu, 30 October 2014, 10:21:21 »
  • Mac mini: Spinning HDD, used daily, put to sleep overnight and when not in use. Just ordered a drive carrier for a second drive and will be swapping in a SSD and will power off when not in use.

It's not too bad, but  installing the second drive is made way more difficult than it had to be by the "looks design" at apple. I think form should follow function, apple sacrifices almost everything for form.

Offline TacticalCoder

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #36 on: Thu, 30 October 2014, 10:48:42 »
Just wondering how often you guys think a PC needs to be restarted?

For Windows I have no idea so I won't be of any help but "funny" story here... I've had a Debian Linux server reach an uptime of four years (!): no major security patch affecting my setup during all these years so the thing kept cranking happily. The motherboard eventually died if I recall correctly: the thing wouldn't reboot because the hosting company had replaced the dedicated server by a much more recent version which had chipsets on the new motherboard not even recognized by my old Debian Linux version (I didn't even have the network working anymore IIRC)  :p

As for my workstation (Core i5 / 16 GB of Ram): it's running 64-bit Debian Linux too and it regularly reaches 6 months of uptime. Typically I reboot it when I physically need to move it or when I leave on vacation for several weeks. No fancy graphic card and I'm using underpowered CPUs so that the max TDP is low. The thing is really not drawing much current when idle so I don't care about leaving it always on.

(btw  SpAmRaY thanks for that link of mine you fixed in the other thread)
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Offline slip84

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #37 on: Thu, 30 October 2014, 20:23:26 »
  • Mac mini: Spinning HDD, used daily, put to sleep overnight and when not in use. Just ordered a drive carrier for a second drive and will be swapping in a SSD and will power off when not in use.

It's not too bad, but  installing the second drive is made way more difficult than it had to be by the "looks design" at apple. I think form should follow function, apple sacrifices almost everything for form.
Yeah, just read the guide on this and it looks pretty fun. Shy of melting the aluminum down, you basically have to take everything apart, eh?

Oh well, good weekend project.

Offline dorkvader

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #38 on: Thu, 30 October 2014, 22:36:00 »
  • Mac mini: Spinning HDD, used daily, put to sleep overnight and when not in use. Just ordered a drive carrier for a second drive and will be swapping in a SSD and will power off when not in use.

It's not too bad, but  installing the second drive is made way more difficult than it had to be by the "looks design" at apple. I think form should follow function, apple sacrifices almost everything for form.
Yeah, just read the guide on this and it looks pretty fun. Shy of melting the aluminum down, you basically have to take everything apart, eh?

Oh well, good weekend project.

nah it's not that bad: you don't have to take the MB apart that much, just take the RAM out so you can slide it out of the case a little. If you want I can see if I can dig up the apple hardware maintenance manual on it. Apple makes the best ones with pretty picutres and screw charts and everything. It's annoying, but straightforward. I think installing a second drive is easier than the first because the hardest part is slotting the drive into the "stop" in the case blind. You just have to fiddle with it until it works. And the power cable always gets in the way. Once you have the first in, the second one lies pretty much on top of it so it's pretty easy to slot into place. Just keep trying and you'll get it. Sometimes it'll slot in right away with no issues. If you run into trouble, PM me or whatever and I should be able to help.

It's not like replacing the powerbutton on an imac. Requires you to replace the back case, having to take everything out of the old one and put into the new: takes an experienced technician all day.

Offline TacticalCoder

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #39 on: Fri, 31 October 2014, 13:34:35 »
...but it is probably not wrong to assume that the "computer being on" also implies an endless connection to the "world-wide-web" where, every type of nastiness resides, relentlessly seeking entrance into the inner sanctum of your essence.

In my case it's wrong  :)

I'm "paranoid" too: the main user account I use for accessing the Web is... living entirely in ram!  It's created by a tiny script which sets up a temporary user directory in ram and copies the web browser into that temp directory. All it takes is one command to kill the current browser, delete that entire user dir and re-create it, copy the browser (locally, to that user dir) and then launch that browser. A security exploit would need to first exploit a security hole in the browser and then manage to escalate privileges to be able to compromise my "real" users accounts. It's not impossible but I'm not losing sleep over it.

That and my ethernet switch is, on purpose, near my desk so I can turn the switch's power off when I go to sleep (being paranoid my workstation has, of course, no WiFi capabilities).

That said I realize it's definitely not the norm to run a browser in a throwaway user account living in ram  ::)

Now, as a developer using my computer as a tool to make a living, the one thing that pisses me off the most is when it crashes. It's not that I "need" six months of uptime for my workstation: it's that the fact that my workstation can trivially reach six months of uptime is quite a hint that the system is rock stable solid.

The other benefit is that by running Debian Linux on my workstation and seeing how stable that thing is, I gives me confidence that my servers running Debian Linux are stable too.

So I can work and be quite confident that, baring any hardware issue, my computers will simply do their duty without making me lose my time with crashes / reboot / unstable behavior  :)
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Offline dorkvader

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #40 on: Fri, 31 October 2014, 13:53:28 »
In my case it's wrong  :)

I'm "paranoid" too: the main user account I use for accessing the Web is... living entirely in ram!  It's created by a tiny script which sets up a temporary user directory in ram and copies the web browser into that temp directory. All it takes is one command to kill the current browser, delete that entire user dir and re-create it, copy the browser (locally, to that user dir) and then launch that browser. A security exploit would need to first exploit a security hole in the browser and then manage to escalate privileges to be able to compromise my "real" users accounts. It's not impossible but I'm not losing sleep over it.

Wow that's really cool! Is this Linux? I think I'd know how to make that work. Maybe I'll give it a shot.

Offline CSCoder4ever

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #41 on: Sun, 02 November 2014, 11:29:39 »
I usually restart whenever something starts becoming quirky. Which is usually after a week or so of uptime.
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Offline TacticalCoder

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #42 on: Sun, 02 November 2014, 12:42:24 »
In my case it's wrong  :)

I'm "paranoid" too: the main user account I use for accessing the Web is... living entirely in ram!  It's created by a tiny script which sets up a temporary user directory in ram and copies the web browser into that temp directory. All it takes is one command to kill the current browser, delete that entire user dir and re-create it, copy the browser (locally, to that user dir) and then launch that browser. A security exploit would need to first exploit a security hole in the browser and then manage to escalate privileges to be able to compromise my "real" users accounts. It's not impossible but I'm not losing sleep over it.

Wow that's really cool! Is this Linux? I think I'd know how to make that work. Maybe I'll give it a shot.

Yup it's linux... I just created a shell script that mounts a tmpfs (or ramfs: the two have different properties), unzips the browser in that directory, links that directory to the user's home dir ("ln -s  $MY_TEMP_DIR  /home/temp") and that's basically it. There's really not much to it: basically /etc/passwd is not modified and reference /home/temp as the directory for user "temp". It's just that this directory doesn't really "exist": the shellscript simply symlinks to it using "ln" once the ramdisk has been setup.

The main user account allows the temp user to display graphical program in its X session and the temp user exports the DISPLAY=:0.0 and then displays its browser on the main user's graphical session.

You can always be more paranoid/secure, say by running it all in a sandbox / VM or even surfing from a dedicated diskless "read-only" computer or whatever but I'm prefectly happy with my setup : )

When I want to exchange files between user accounts (typically a PDF), I simply copy it to the /tmp/ dir or to some shared dir.

I set this up ages ago and the thing keeps working fine. I simply update the browser to be unzipped once in a while to get the latest version but that's it.
HHKB Pro JP (daily driver) -- HHKB Pro 2 -- Industrial IBM Model M 1395240-- NIB Cherry MX 5000 - IBM Model M 1391412 (Swiss QWERTZ) -- IBM Model M 1391403 (German QWERTZ) * 2 -- IBM Model M Ambra -- Black IBM Model M M13 -- IBM Model M 1391401 -- IBM Model M 139? ? ? *2 -- Dell AT102W -- Ergo (split) SmartBoard (white ALPS apparently)

Offline Smasher816

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #43 on: Thu, 06 November 2014, 16:46:37 »
In my case it's wrong  :)

I'm "paranoid" too: the main user account I use for accessing the Web is... living entirely in ram!  It's created by a tiny script which sets up a temporary user directory in ram and copies the web browser into that temp directory. All it takes is one command to kill the current browser, delete that entire user dir and re-create it, copy the browser (locally, to that user dir) and then launch that browser. A security exploit would need to first exploit a security hole in the browser and then manage to escalate privileges to be able to compromise my "real" users accounts. It's not impossible but I'm not losing sleep over it.

Wow that's really cool! Is this Linux? I think I'd know how to make that work. Maybe I'll give it a shot.

You could also look into chroot jails.

Offline daerid

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #44 on: Mon, 10 November 2014, 00:02:52 »
I think I can count on one hand how many times I've restarted my win 8.1 machine

Offline dorkvader

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #45 on: Mon, 10 November 2014, 00:49:46 »
I think I can count on one hand how many times I've restarted my win 8.1 machine

only had it for 2 weeks or do you just never install updates?

Offline dustinhxc

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #46 on: Mon, 10 November 2014, 00:55:36 »
I shut mine down every night!

Offline bueller

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #47 on: Mon, 10 November 2014, 00:56:33 »
People restart their machines?!?!
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Offline appleonama

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Re: How often should you restart your PC?
« Reply #48 on: Mon, 10 November 2014, 00:56:39 »
never unless something is acting up