Iām asking about āsans rebootā updates for PureOS. Why do I have to enter my encryption password twice and my login password once to update an app that isnāt even running?
My comment about MX Linux was simply to indicate that other distros donāt demand instant reboots, even though some updates, such as kernel updates, wonāt take effect until a reboot (thanks, Jeremiah).
I shutdown my Purism laptop every couple of days, I can wait for a kernel update, or reboot manually. But donāt force reboots to update a library I donāt even use.
Politely now, I ask āCould we have āsans rebootā updates in PureOS like some other distros do?ā
Understanding that this doesnāt require rolling releases. (MX Linux is a point release distro.)
Just go into the terminal and type
sudo apt update
and
sudo apt upgrade
This will update all packages that can be updated and not force a reboot. It will tell you if a reboot is needed for an update to take effect if needed.
The reason the graphical updater requires a reboot for updates is that it is considered āsaferā and/or ācleanerā to update packages in a specific environment designed for updates.
I think you need to refer that question to Purism. I could speculate but in this case I donāt think speculation from me is helpful, particularly as it might relate to whether these names will always remain the same in the future.
That of course is your decision to make but a wise decision is difficult to make because it depends on knowing the consequences of not getting the update immediately.
I usually peruse the description of the change (the changelog) and if it gives a CVE number, follow the link to the CVE description - to decide whether to reboot immediately or leave it until the next normal reboot.
If it says āallows unauthenticated remote attacker to do arbitrary code execution with privilege escalation, being actively exploited in the wildā 
then I would say āreboot immediatelyā.
Perhaps best to put your comment here: livePatch service? if that is what you have in mind.
Does it actually enforce a reboot or merely give the user hassle about choosing to reboot now or reboot later?
Ubuntu seems to a) know which updates even require a restart and b) give the user the choice of now or later.
[quote=āantonis, post:37, topic:7723, full:trueā]
But then how are the names Amber and Byzantium chosen. If they are always the same (Amber=stable
and Byzantium=rolling) the choice of names sounds strange. Why it is not āstableā and ārollingā.[/quote]
They appear to have chosen a rock theme for the names of their releases and are working their way through the alphabet for versions (Iām curious if Cobolt will be next) much like the tree theme for the phones (Aspen, Birch, Chestnut, etc)
Amber tracks the current Debian Stable (Buster), Byzantium tracks the current Debian Testing (Bullseye), there is currently nothing tracking Debian Unstable (Sid). With this said, I donāt consider Byzantium to be a rolling release, but rather the early adopter testing of the next release. This does get new features sooner but at the potential cost of some stability.
Based on what Iāve seen, Amber will retire with Buster, Byzantium will become āstableā with Bullseye, and there will be a new name for the next testing versionā¦
True, this is speculation/a guess, but it is a guess based on observation and current evidence; as such, I think most will be able to follow my logic.
Many different issues intertwined here 
Arch is a rolling release, just to clarify things. And if things change, you will have to edit config files there too :-).
As for amber, byzantinum: only purism can say why they chose these specific names. But for debian and derivatives it is pretty common to give the various dists code names, such as wheezy, bullseye, or warty warthog :-). In Debian one has the choice of running a rolling release (testing, sid, byzantinum) or choosing a stable one (amber).
As for the āsans rebootā updates, this is completely orthogonal to the stable/rolling discussion. It is perfectly possible to update a computer (with basically the exception of the kernel unless one live-patches) while running. And this is typically done with servers. However on graphical desktops the system often recommends reboots: the reason is that processes that are running are not being updated even if the underlying files are being deleted and updated. So eg. when your graphical desktop has a security issue in xlib.so and and an update provides a newer xlib.so, the old one will still be used until the library is unloaded and reloaded. (google lsof DELETED to find out more about deleted but still opened files).
And as it is pretty tricky to find out which services need to be restarted in order to get rid of obsoleted but still opened files, and reopening these e.g. within the running graphical desktop might even be impossible, many desktop distributions simply recommend (or require) a reboot after something crucial has been updated.
I didnāt realize I had that option. Simple enough for me.
Cobalt you say? Hmm . . .
For what itās worth if thereās ever a build tracking SID Iāll be a bit disappointed if itās not Uranium.
So from what I read above PureOs does not roll as āautomaticā as Arch. That is, there will be a new name in the future and we must wait for it to do the upgrade. Thatās ok, I just wanted to understand how it is meant to work. It is a kind of ācontrolled rollingā.
More ārolling,ā less ātumbling.ā
Hard to say what happens in the future but the way this works on Ubuntu is that the change of ānameā can be essentially automatic i.e. click āupgrade distributionā on the UI (and it will tell you when a new ānameā is available i.e. that option is only presented when it is appropriate) and lo and behold it will change /etc/apt/sources.list as part of the update - or just click otherwise for normal updates, which will keep you on the same repos.
No, if byzantinum is used in the āsidā sense, there will never have to be a name change. If byzantinum will at some point become a new āstableā, however, then yes one will have to change names to upgrade to the next one. So if you will ever have to change names depends on a policy by pureos that we donāt know yet.
Unless it is done for you, as happens with Ubuntu.
I am interested in switching from Amber to Byzantium. I am wondering what the status of Byzantium is.
In November, I see a message from @jeremiah:
Please note, this is an early release, it is meant for testing, not production.
And I see another one (regarding the ISOs):
Please note they are experimental at this point.
Just curious, will there be a point when Byzantium is more official/supported? Or will it always be more of a experimental/ādo it at your own riskā type of thing?
For what itās worth, Iāve been running Byzantium since November and the experience hasnāt been noticeably different from running Amber, aside from newer software. Any bugs Iāve encountered have been upstream bugs with GNOME 3.34, but Amber has upstream bugs too that were fixed in newer versions of GNOME.
aye, but itās about the AMOUNT of bugs that have ALREADY been fixed or that are reported but have not been fixed yet ā¦
there is a method called āheatā to up-vote bugs so that the higher priority ones are fixed first ā¦ not sure if this applies to the ātestingā or only for āstableā ā¦ please somebody expand here ā¦
Thanks for reporting your experience, Iām considering switching to Byzantium now. I would love to have newer versions, and can live with a few bugs in random software, the only thing I would dread is if things completely break (like boot issues). But I guess the advantage here is that PureOS is tested on Liberemās hardware.
Byzantium is supported, we aim to fix bugs and ensure it is up to date and secure. But because it is a rolling release it is updated frequently and that brings more instability. Amber is less frequently updated and software has had a longer testing cycle by users and in production. At some point, and this will be announced in the future, likely next year, Byzantium will become our āstableā distro. Amber will become āold stableā (or even deprecated) and weāll have a new rolling release.
Thanks for the info, @jeremiah!
Is there an advised path forward to move from Amber to Byzantium? Knowing at some point I will want to update, would it be better/easier to do sooner, or later; or wonāt make much difference? Thanks again!