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Comment by ledriveby | Hacker News Reader

I'm pretty sure this is how ChromeOS' update system works.

Are you sure? Because ChromeOS is just a Gentoo fork where google replaced the package manager to support their binaries instead.

Programs running in memory just stay running, even if you update the files that are those programs. This is how Linux works. Restart them when you need the new version.

Its clean. Its easy. I kept watching netflix as firefox compiled (~30 mins), and got to close the browser after the next episode was done, and open the latest Firefox to monkey with the new settings.

I didn't know that (Gentoo user). I suppose it has more in common with Sabayon as a binary jobbie. The full Gentoo experience is not for the faint of heart but when you have spend hours watching compiler etc output and fixing breakage that would bring most users of an OS to their knees, you lose the dread inherent in OS updates.

You are nearly (and generally) correct about programs just stay running even when overwritten but of course programs generally consist of more than one file and might run more than once and if you update part of this and something reloads or whatever, you can end up in a world of hurt. That said, it is behaviour that I have relied on more often than I can count and so have you with your Firefox anecdote. I've done some remote Gentoo updates with systems in quite the broken state - it keeps IT interesting! I once had to get Puppet to install telnetd on some systems so I could repair sshd.

Several years ago I remember reading on stack overflow about how someone had managed to rm the ls program on a Linux system. Your anecdote reminded me of the fix. I’ll do some googling and see if I can find it. If I can, I’ll post it here.

Hats off to people like you. You’re what we mere mortals aspire to, and it’s always encouraging to hear that someone else has attained a level of mastery. Makes it seem more achievable!

> Are you sure? Because ChromeOS is just a Gentoo fork where google replaced the package manager to support their binaries instead.

Yes, and that's a gross oversimplification. Android got the idea from ChromeOS.

I suspect it's possible to reload the OS in place with kexec, but haven't proposed it yet.

Eventually the kernel has to be updated, which you want to reboot for. Plus ensuring that the entire userland is running the same new versions of base system libraries isn't much less disruptive than simply rebooting.

Anyway, ChromeOS swaps the system and kernel between 4 partitions [1] - automatic update effectively installs a new system into the system partitions you're not booted from, then tells the boot loader to boot from the other ones next reboot.

[1] https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/chromiumos-design-docs/...

> google replaced the package manager

Google uses portage: http://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/packages/portage

It would make more sense for Google to be using Portage to make/install their binary packages. Emerge and quickpkg can both make binary packages: https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Binary_package_guide#Creating_b...

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