apt-get/Synaptic

[Kevin E. Glosser]

Advent Systems wrote:
> Yes.  When you run updates you want as little going on "system wise" as 
> possible (synaptic, etc.),  so rather then run apt-get from a  terminal 
> window while X and gnome are running (which are "big" system wise) would 
> it not make more sense to shut them down and have as little running as 
> possible when you do updates, or does it really not matter what is 
> running when preforming updates?

I would imagine that what is running is in general not important. The 
software that is currently running would be in memory, the updates are 
changing files on your hard drive. The next time the updates are 
accessed then the changes would go into effect. Meaning, the next time 
you launch the program and the hard drive is accessed to load it into 
memory it would then be running the newer patched version.

So, if you have an application "running" and then update it. The effect 
would be none on the current running "instance" of it. However, the next 
time you run it or if it loads something patched from the hard drive it 
would then change.

In either case, I don't think there is a general rule here one can 
construct about limiting processes in execution while performing an update.

I'm speaking on a purely single user desktop computer viewpoint. If you 
are updating a server or machine used by multiple people at the same 
time, that would be different. :)

KEG