On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 06:59:26AM -0400, Robert Heller wrote: > Yes, you only *need* to reboot to pick up a new kernel. Unlike > MS-Windows, none of the other updates *require* a reboot. Note: if Warning, though: there's a big difference between *need* and *should*. > glibc (or other widely used shared libraries) is updated it (they) > won't get picked up unless *ALL* of the processes that use it (them) > are restarted. Other changes may only take effect once a reboot occurs. In other cases you may end up with some programs using new setting and others using old settings (eg tzdata; if you've just had a new daylight-savings rule change then updating your tzdata rpms will cause newly started programs to use the new rules, but old programs to still use the old). It's not just limited to glibc. So, depending on the packages being updated, I normally _recommend_ a reboot. But, being a sensible OS, you can reboot at the time of your choosing, not at patch time :-) -- rgds Stephen