As Clear Linux is a rolling release, and updates are based on version differences… How frequently are updates required to maintain a system capable of updating? If I install today, how long can the system go without updating, before it is “too old to update”? Is there a rule of thumb, if no hard time limit?
1 Like
Agree. Also something like public build reports will be good to tracking new software/bugs/release changelogs.
1 Like
I’m not aware of any barriers currently for updating to a newer release. I know of people that have updated old versions of virtual machines (~1 year old) on hosted services up to current. It took several minutes, and multiple updates cycles to get through each format bump, but it worked.
Moving backwards past format bumps may work, but is not supported or guaranteed.
1 Like
My general advice is: You should keep any system that is indirectly or not connected to the internet patched. That means that for low risk systems, you could choose to update weekly, and it would be reasonably fine to do so. Two-weekly would be risky already - especially for systems with any sort of external exposure.
Clearlinux has, for this reason, a special startup job that makes it check and see if it’s not outdated more than 2 weeks. This is important because we want to make sure we immediately patch old systems that were shut down for a significant amount of time.
Technically, systems that are updated monthly should have zero issues updating to new releases. I wouldn’t go that long though, because the security risk drastically becomes more severe when you don’t update systems that long.