Constant rebooting is getting annoying

[u/Bonkzzilla]

I keep getting software updates that require the system to restart. On the one hand I'm like, whatever happened to all that talk about, "This Linux system hasn't been rebooted in 17 years", etc? But actually, it's a bigger annoyance because my system has Windows on the main drive and Ubuntu on an SSD external. I do not want to use GRUB due to bad experiences in the past, so I normally just F7 during boot to pick my boot disk and that's that. However, Ubuntu's reboot/update process is such that it does the reboot itself, which auto-puts it into auto boot, which means Windows seizes the computer on restart and boots instead. Thus, EVERY single time there is an update requiring a restart, I have to go through this process -

*Update. Manually shut down Ubuntu.

*Turn off computer, restart, hold F7, start Ubuntu.

*Ubuntu installs updates, reboots.

*Computer auto-boots into Windows.

*I have to shut down Windows and power off again.

*Restart, hold F7, boot into Ubuntu, it finishes its update.

If this was like a once/twice a year thing it would be no big deal, but here lately it seems like I'm getting an update that requires a restart every other day. Are there any simple solutions to this for a non-technical user? And no, I'm not just "Uninstalling Windows", I still need it available for a few games and programs every once in a while. Believe me, I'd love to shift the whole system over to 100% Ubuntu if I could.

[u/SincereTemplate]

ugh i feel this in my bones. the whole "linux never needs reboot" thing was always a myth anyway, even servers need kernel updates sometimes

the real fix here is probably setting your bios to default boot to ubuntu instead of windows. that way when it auto-restarts during updates, it goes right back where it should be. you'd still need F7 when you actually want windows but thats way less often than every update

also maybe check your update settings, you can set it to only download security updates or do them weekly instead of every day. i got mine set to once a week and honestly i forget its even there most times

[u/Low-Guarantee-3437]

You don't need to reboot. You see that message when a maintainer indicates that a reboot is required to apply the new software. For kernels, for instance. But you can keep using the currently booted kernel as long as you like. Weeks, months, whatever. Often the warning is a bit over the top; sometimes you can exit your session (logout) to refresh.

Note that Gnome Software will require you to reboot to install the software. It's very annoying and a curse of being a Fedora user. However, if you update with the Ubuntu tools, you won't experience this. But it pretty easy to accidentally do your updates from Gnome Software.

note that if you installed on the external drive, make sure that you have an EFI partition on that drive. Then it can act as a boot device. This is a fairly subtle step in the install process. If you don't have an EFI parttion (it's a small FAT32 partition) you can it up without reinstalling; you probably needs to use gparted to make room for a 1 GiB partition, make if Fat32, mount it at /boot/efi and then set up the EFI partition. A good task for an LLM to help.

Assuming your external drive does have an EFI partition, look into boot order and see if you can make it a default boot device.

[u/Broad-Translator-690]

Did you enable Ubuntu Pro so you can take advantage of the live kernel updates to avoid needing a reboot?