I have LineageOS installed on my phone and it has almost weekly updates. Since the device is quite budget, I believe its memory can be damaged by such often updates so I’m not updating it for 2 months already. But there are security fixes and patches in newer versions so I do want to update. My question is: do I have to install every update one by one (there are like 8 of them lol) or can I just install the newest version? All of the updates are minor of course. There are no Android version jumps

EDIT: I installed the latest version as everyone suggested and everything seems to be working fine. Thank you all for help

  • person
    8·
    8 months ago

    AFAIK LineageOS updates supply the whole system every time, that’s why it’s always so large. You should be fine skipping a couple. (fine in this way anyway)

    That being said, I really doubt you could ever write enough data to harm the mass storage or RAM of your device before you have to switch phones because it stops being supported, or you drop it on concrete, etc.

    • GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.mlOP
      21·
      8 months ago

      I am almost forced to use my phone for as long as possible because of financial reasons. This one was bought used and it’s 3 years old already but I’m planning to use it for at least 2 more years. That means keeping the memory in good condition is important for me. Same goes for its overall condition and structural integrity (lol) too

      • person
        7·
        8 months ago

        Sources vary, and admittedly I didn’t research this thoroughly, but even old articles say that flash memory (which is what almost all smartphones use, I think) is expected to work for 10,000 or 100,000 complete writes. That is just sooo much data, even if your phone only has 16GB or something

        You should research more on this, and decide if it will be fine for you for the next X years you wish to use this phone.

        https://superuser.com/questions/17350/whats-the-life-expectancy-of-an-sd-card#17377

        • s38b35M5@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          8 months ago

          Agreed. This is not a concern worthy of modifying your behavior over. Update or don’t, but don’t worry about the max writes of your phone storage unless you happen to be serving Wikipedia or running a public DNS server out of your pocket.

      • pinguinu [any]@lemmygrad.ml
        1·
        8 months ago

        My brother had a Motorola from 2014 until 2020. I gave a friend a smartphone from 2017 that I used daily until 2022 and he’s using it now. I’m sure you’ll be fine.

        Also, the updates are weekly. I think they ship the latest commit or something, so skipping a few may not be a big deal.

        Edit: answering the question, yes, you only need to download the latest

        • GolfNovemberUniform@lemmy.mlOP
          1·
          8 months ago

          Hmm I know the worst thing that can happen is bootloop which is fixable by clean flash. I’m mostly scared of an unnoticeable weird breakage that creates privacy and security vulnerabilities. Is such a thing theoretically possible? I know it’s a ridiculous question but still