Linux System Updates

From Zanecorpwiki

As a rule of thumb, don't update stuff unless you can restart the stuff that gets supdated. When code loads, a copy is made, so you're not at risk of taking down running processes, but with modern shared libraries, not all code is loaded. Specifically, if a library updates, and a running processes attempts to load that library, it will almost certainly cause a problem.

For applications, this means you'll want to quit and restart the application. For system related stuff, especially kernel code, you'll need to do a full reboot to be safe.