It's so sad when Twitch streamers with 10,000+ Live viewers are forced to reboot for a Windows update
It wasn't my thesis, but I was part of the people that helped to solved the resulting mess (the update took 4 hours and the deadline was 2PM).
That day I learned to never rely on Microsoft ever again.
To answer your question, it is possible to update the Linux kernel without rebooting, but you may run into some issues with kernel modules that would be solved with a reboot.
* Edit: After writing this comment, I remembered that Snaps on Linux have automatic updates that can only be deferred up to 90 days. However, Snaps don't handle Linux kernel updates. I don't recommend using Snaps.
It stopped happening someday, but it's still haunting me. It doesn't really build trust.
[1] https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man8/rtcwake.8.html
You don't get the forced reboot until your version goes EOL - you'd have to ignore updates for years for that.
Edit: it was may 2019 as per another commenter
Then again, the "home edition" is the edition that you should use when you are streaming live on twitch to 10,000 people!
If you intentionally restart you computer every week or two it will never happen to you though. Or set your computer up to not do it.
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/window...
The situation improved after the May 2019 update, but the updates will still be automatically installed after you pause them every 7 days for a maximum of 5 times (35 days total):
https://www.howtogeek.com/410183/microsoft-abandons-windows-...
The last time I was really angry about Windows was with Window Me. The entire TCP stack took a dive which I couldn’t recover from. Even replaced the NIC. Replaced that with Windows 2000 and haven’t had a serious issue since.
Everything from HID devices not responding, task manager and utilities like Settings not opening, device drivers left in an unstable state, and more can happen. To their credit, it does usually fail in a way that allows users to close applications before they're compelled to restart.
But windows is also weird. People always talk about ads or having candy crush forcefully reinstalled after updates. I strongly suspect these things vary by region, because those two at least I never noticed.
I didn't even know that. It's one more item on the list of reasons to not use Snaps.
Snaps can kiss my ass.
How does this compare to Windows updates, and how many of them require rebooting?
When you update, you update everything - OS and apps all in one go unless you manually install stuff yourself outside of the package manager. Updates take from seconds to a few minutes unless you are running Gentoo in which case its from minutes to days or even weeks whilst your compiler crunches its way through vast seas of source code and you fix the various issues along the way 8)
You can automate the whole thing or not - up to you.
Which as parent points out are functionally nonexistent, except for a rare kernel update (and you don't have to restart if your glasses are thick enough to live patch).
I often suggest Manjaro, which is smart enough to do all the updating for you, but is also Arch enough to let you do it all manually.
One thing to remember is that many streamers are using dual-PC setups and the bigger streamers may only run these systems for streaming -- not for personal use.
It's very possible the streamer missed any update nags because they are mainly interfaced with the gaming PC.
And depending on their setup all the user input might be going to the gaming PC and the streaming PC might think it's currently inactive but with a pesky OBS process left running.
Victim blaming once again.
One thing is that Windows Home does not have an option to postpone or delay updates, this is only for Windows Pro editions. When there is an update, it will start doing it automatically with a timer and it sometimes does not pop up on top of everything you're doing.