On my Linux boxes, I never have to suspend my work because updates are in progress. Sometimes (rarely) a reboot is needed, but I have the choice as to when I do it and I'm not nagged half to death. Sometimes the next reboot after a set of updates is a bit slower, but pretty much imperceptibly so. All my applications are kept up-to-date.
When I have to use my wife's Windows 7 box (to run IE or some of the programs I have to run for the Open University) I find myself swimming in a sea of frustration. The boot up is painfully slow and probably made even more so because, "Windows is configuring the system..." (i.e. finishing off the last set of updates, I assume). Having finally got a desktop that responds to user interaction at all, it crawls along at a snail's pace whilst the anti-virus software checks for updates and applies them, and whilst Windows checks for updates. If there are any updates, their installation usually makes the machine so slow I just have to wait for them to 'install'. And if the updates need a reboot, which they do far more frequently than on my proper computers, a warning appears at some constant interval timed to be just too short to be tolerable reminding me a reboot is needed and threatening me with going ahead and doing it anyway if I don't click the right button. I know! I know! Just let me finish what I'm doing, will you!
Finally, when I turn the box off, I get a message saying something like, "Windows is completing updates. Please do not power off your computer". Hang on. I'm late for a dinner date. I've got to pick the grandkids up from school. What do you mean, "Please do not switch off your computer"? When I close a machine down, I expect it to close down. And all that's just for the OS updates and the few programs that come with it. I believe MS Office will also update this way too, but we don't have MS Office. Everything else (FF, Java etc) I have to go searching for myself or configure to update as necessary.
And do you know what's the worst? If I try to explain to other Windows users, who've probably been complaining as loudly as me, that it doesn't have to be like this, they just tell me that Linux is for geeks and that they coudn't possibly spend the time learning to use it even if they had an aptitude for computers and an interest in It. Anyway, they just have to have Word and Excel because everybody else does and they know that Libre Office is supposed to be able to work with Office documents, but it isn't perfect and it would make life hard and they're just not going to do it, so there.
Hey ho!
Cheers
PAE
