It depends, actually. I never reboot on purpose - it usually happens when there's a power disruption or some idiot on the cleaning crew at night turns off my machine (and if I ever catch him, it will be the LAST computer he turns off). That said, I suppose it happens when I upgrade from one version of openSuSE to the next - but that's it. I do have a linux server in my computer room I haven't re-booted in 5 years, but that's an anomaly. It's on a UPS and, so far, power issues have not outlasted the UPS. Fingers crossed.

Daily for my desktops, as needed for other boxes, and probably more often for laptops as they get used ofsite a lot.

Fixed machines: only for kernel updates. Laptops: whenever I transport them

I have one machine at work that's been up for >1600 days though, so I guess that goes under "never". The only reason it was rebooted at all was for work being done on the power outlets. It was well over 1000 days at that time.

How often to I reboot? never.

Sleep it daily.

Power off/on if it locks up/crashes (rare)

Reboot for what? It's not Windows.

root@vmhost:~# uptime
17:42:12 up 347 days, 17:36, 5 users, load average: 1.59, 1.50, 1.43

Hmm. Out of curiosity, what does:

Or similar command for your distro produce? I'm betting that you might be missing a security update that needs a reboot.

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root@vmhost:~# yum check-update --security
The program 'yum' is currently not installed. You can install it by typing:
apt-get install yum

szboardstretcher the real question you should be asking is:
When was the last time you had a security breach?

I remember vaguely trivially suffering from an injected iframe attack in 2005.

Plenty of upgrades since then.

Like I said: It's not Windows.

I have Linux on one partition and Window's on another partition so when I start up I have 15sec. to boot up to linux or it go to Window's for my wife that is why I boot up every day, Ira111.

I reboot my PCs, Laptops, NAS, HTPC, file server, etc when needed.

For laptops and netbooks I only turn on when using them.

My primary PC, HTPC, and NAS I leave on most of the time. Reboot only when necessary for updates or if one of them locks up or freezes or for hardware upgrades.

All my other desktops I leave off until I need to use one of them.

The old file server ran for around three years without a reboot. The PSU died. And on inspecting the motherboard, some capacitors are swollen and leaking, so for now it has been retired until I build a new one. A Synology NAS has replaced the old file server for now.

Only if the power grid goes down.

I like to listen to music as I work and, although Spotify is a great product, it doesn't like Linux (Ubuntu) very much... it hangs
When it does, I restart Linux which is pretty good at recovering.

If you use the menu to shut down, similar to how one shuts down any computer via the menu and it shuts down after some time, then you're doing it correctly. Same also if you go to a command prompt, a.k.a. terminal and issue a command like "poweroff" and it eventually shuts down, you are also doing it correctly.

Pressing and holding the power button for like 10 seconds and forcing it to shutdown is not the best way to shut down. Unplugging it, providing it also doesn't have a battery; and forcing it to shutdown is not the best way to shut down. And that's similar for pretty much Linux, Windows, or Mac. No guarantees that it will cause problems, but the likelihood is much higher.

If for some reason the system starts booting again, there's something wrong because it should shut off and stay off. Very old computers, I'm thinking 15 years or even older (maybe 20-25 years?) may have power supply setups where they would not shut off completely and therefore reboot, but that is as I say very much in the past. If you're telling it to reboot, then look for an option to tell it to shut down or turn off.

If still having problems, I suggest you create a new thread; describe what system you have by manufacturer and model if possible and describe exactly what you're doing and how the system is behaving and people can help you further.

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Jewellz: It all depends how you turn your PC off. Most linux distributions have a menu, where you can choose either to restart, shutdown, suspend or hibernate.

In the case of restart or shutdown you will be rebooting your pc. If you choose suspend or hibernate, however, your pc will shut down but will not reboot on restart, because it saves your state. In the case of "suspend", the linux OS saves your state in RAM, so if it your pc is a laptop and not plugged in, the current to the memory will eventually run your battery down, but it will take a lot longer to do that than if your pc were left on while unplugged. If your pc battery runs down, when you restart it, it will reboot.
In the case of "hibernate", your state is saved to disk and you can leave your pc off as long as you want. When you restart you will be where you left off, and it is not a reboot.

Of course if you just turn the power off (not recommended), when you turn it back on, it will be a reboot.

By the way, these options also apply to Windows, although they may use different words for them.

Hope this helps. ;-)

---------- Post added 09-23-14 at 01:20 PM ----------

Jewellz: It all depends how you turn your PC off. Most linux distributions have a menu, where you can choose either to restart, shutdown, suspend or hibernate.

In the case of restart or shutdown you will be rebooting your pc. If you choose suspend or hibernate, however, your pc will shut down but will not reboot on restart, because it saves your state. In the case of "suspend", the linux OS saves your state in RAM, so if it your pc is a laptop and not plugged in, the current to the memory will eventually run your battery down, but it will take a lot longer to do that than if your pc were left on while unplugged. If your pc battery runs down, when you restart it, it will reboot.
In the case of "hibernate", your state is saved to disk and you can leave your pc off as long as you want. When you restart you will be where you left off, and it is not a reboot.

Of course if you just turn the power off (not recommended), when you turn it back on, it will be a reboot.

By the way, these options also apply to Windows, although they may use different words for them.

Hope this helps. ;-)

2 members found this post helpful.

YES, I am rebooting everyday, sometimes more than once too. I don't hibernate that often, I usually shutdown each time I leave pc. But THANK YOU SO MUCH for your quick response and easy to understand verbage.