Hacker News Reader

Comment by fnordsensei | Hacker News Reader

I have three machines: Linux, Windows and a Mac.

The uptime of my Linux machine (general server/media machine) is… A few months at least. Probably half a year at this stage.

The Mac (main work machine) has an uptime of at least 1-2 weeks.

The Windows (gaming) machine. Haha, no. Turn off in the evening, start up in the morning. Loads Steam UI in full screen, and nothing else. Given its purpose, I feel a mixture of love and loathing towards it.

So, my personal experience agrees with yours, with the exception of MacOS. It'll definitely be where I left it.

View on HN

If you haven't restarted your Linux machine in 6 months, you're most likely leaving it open to vulnerabilities. 65 CVEs for just the kernel published in 2022: https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-33/p...

I'm assuming you're not using ksplice, which has its own issues and should really only be used for critical updates when you're unable to reboot.

Thanks for the information. I’ve been lazy with updates, maybe it’s time.

On the other hand, it’s very, very locked down. It barely has access to the internet at all.

True nirvana for me would be to have a functioning Linux desktop, with which I can send a startup command to a windows PC when I want to run some Windows-only games, that also switches my monitor input and peripherals.

Instead of dual-booting, I could give Windows a 1tb SSD that it thinks it owns, and let it live on in its little bubble.

Have you looked into KVM/Qemu and GPU passthrough?

It works really well when/if it works, but I found it to be a rabbit hole of constant tinkering.

There is some software that can pass the framebuffer back to your Linux desktop without a huge performance hit.

Maybe https://looking-glass.io ?

That might be the ticket for me, thanks! I don't have a spare license key (or high-seas version) for Windows, but if I can get a game working with Proton, then I can at least try running some Proton-supported game within that tool on a Linux desktop.

Not yet, since my 'new pc' idea is shelved for at least another year or so, but that sounds like it could be a great help if Steam and Proton don't make things work out of the box. Thanks!

I find this funny because this feels like the opposite of my experience: my Linux laptop, Windows laptop, and Windows desktop usually have an uptime of a month+ with a sleep and resume schedule. Mac on the other hand is the one that is most unreliable and most flakey for me. I have to hard reset it regularly after it becomes completely unusable. At least when I am deciding to restart Windows/Linux it's because I want to pick up an update instead of it just being unusable.

My Mac laptops typically have uptimes of months (85 days, currently). However, I am still on Mojave, and I do have 32 GB of RAM. I do routinely encounter two problems. When switching desktops while have full-screen video the cursor frequently disappears; the solution is to move up a ways until the cursor is surely at the menubar and then click, which will restore the cursor to visibility. The other problem is that audio occasionally stops working (one symptom is that pressing play seems to work but the play time never advances, and of course there is no sound). The solution here is `sudo killall -9 coreaudiod`.

My Windows NUC, on the other other hand, seems to reboot itself within a week, but usually is unusable long before that because it won't wake the monitor up after sleep. And even though I disabled sleep, it still seems to not be able to wake the monitor up.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com