A lot has been discussed about how stable Linux is over long uptimes. 100% agree with just about everything said.
But the same cannot always be said for the apps, web browsers and document viewers, e.g. for your PDFs. Memory leaks are a thing in many applications that run on any OS (Win, Linux, Mac, etc.). (It should be noted that this is not an OS issue.) Browsers in general have a bad reputation for this, even though they've improved drastically over the years, and it should be habit to restart your apps periodically. |
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Consider laptops sleeping, some people probably leave their browser open for months on end... and wonder why it gets bogged down. |
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Does it show that opensource works only for OS, but not other smaller and less complex apps? If opensource OS can work fine for months together without restart, then whats wrong in expecting similar / same from opensource browser? |
It isn't really a parallel. When you run Linux continuously, the only things actually running most of the time are the kernel and some background daemons. The Linux kernel is extremely well designed and the daemons are relatively simple programs. Browsers have to deal with a multiplicity of sites that are heavy with javascript. They are very complex programs and leak memory like sieves.
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The OS runs the machine and manages the hardware.
The app OTOH runs on top of the OS and uses the features provided by the OS to do the apps job. While the OS is designed to run 24/7/365 (and on servers often may) the app does not have the same quality control, security perusal, and reliability built in. Thus the app may have unintended faults that eventually can cause a system to fail (memory leaks are an example already given) and restarting the app minimizes these problems that accumulate over time. Periodic restarts are usually a good thing. Open source software is always a good thing since anyone can view and verify or modify the code to suit their needs. The ability to view the code means any built-in malware would be identified and outed quickly. Inefficient code can be identified and tweaked for better efficiency as well. These features of open source apply for both the OS and the apps. |
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^ I prefer to hibernate. Energy consumption of the machine is the same as when shut off, and I don't even have to save documents beforehand.
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