[NTLUG:Discuss] Ubuntu Developer Summit for version 10.04

[Ted Gould]

On Wed, 2009-10-28 at 00:26 -0500, Ralph Green wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-10-27 at 13:21 -0500, Ted Gould wrote:
> > >   The way update notification works in 9.04 is really annoying.  I know
> > > what they were trying to accomplish, but the solution is worse than the
> > > cure.  The single worst part is having Update Manager open up on the
> > > screen when it find updates.  This happens in the middle of
> > > presentations, or other things you are trying to use the computer for.
> > > I don't tend to work on the newest computers and Update Manager is not
> > > only distracting, but noticeably slows down the desktop until it
> > > finishes loading.
> > 
> > It, by design, should always start in the background and ask for
> > attention.  So if it is appearing above any window, that is a bug.
> > 
>   It starts in the background.  But, that is still a bad thing.  It
> noticeably slows down whatever you are working on until it finishes
> loading.  The window itself is distracting and it starts flashing in the
> task bar until you pay attention to it.  
> 
> > >  Now, you can turn off the auto launch of Update Manager, but that still
> > > leaves notifications that are too strong.  That big red arrow comes up.
> > > It makes it look like your system is in danger, even if the updates is
> > > something like the recent time zone updates.  I am about to start
> > > putting a cron job in to "pkill update-notifier" once an hour or more
> > > often.  One of the things I do is setting up machines for people who
> > > have very little computer experience.  I have kept the deployed machines
> > > at Ubuntu 8.10 so far.  I don't want to stay with an older version, but
> > > the way 9.04 works for notifying about updates is just not acceptable.
> > > Is it going to get better?
> > 
> > First, in general I would not recommend killing update-manager.  Things
> > like security updates should be acted upon promptly.  I think no matter
> > how much computer experience someone has, they should learn this on any
> > system they're nominally put in charge of.
> > 
> > I think that the solution you're probably looking for here is just to
> > set up autoinstall updates.  You can do that in software sources, you
> > shouldn't get any popups.  And as long as you don't enable things like
> > backports the system should remain stable.
> > 
>   That is not the solution I am looking for.  It is not even close.  I
> need to have usable systems and automatic updates is not the way to
> accomplish that.  There was at least one time this last 6 months that an
> update broke stable systems.  It was the Intel X11 drivers and an update
> made them where X would not start.  I have several computers.  I waited
> a day or two, and logged in from a virtual console and updated to get
> things working.  I don't expect inexperienced computer users to do that.
> Automatic updates is not something I can safely deploy.  I expect I
> would have ended up driving around North Texas, visiting customers and
> fixing their computers.
> 
> > Autoupdate isn't setup by default as many people feel uncomfortable with
> > the computer doing things without their permission.  Personally, I feel
> > like this is a misperception as it already turns of the screen for
> > you :)  But, that's the reason it's not enabled by default.
> > 
>   I hope that is not the only reason it is off.  Whoever makes that
> decision for Ubuntu should know it is likely to cause infrequent, but
> serious problems if it is turned on.  My customers run pretty simple
> applications, mostly email and web browsers.  A lot of people run more
> demanding applications that have even more dependencies.  Ubuntu has
> been pretty good about updates not breaking things, but not good enough
> to recommend auto update.
> 
>  I would not want auto update for myself, either.  I have two computers
> that run a bunch of virtual machines using VirtualBox.  Neither can use
> KVM because they don't have hardware virtualization support.  I have to
> shutdown all those virtual machines and reboot the host machine when one
> of the many updates comes through that requires rebooting.  I need to
> control when that happens, so the work being done by those virtual
> machines is not impacted too badly.  I may run more virtual machines at
> home than many people, but I know I am not alone.  Auto update would be
> a terrible thing for me have turned on.

After all this, it seems to me that you're saying you don't want updates
being shown to users.  Ever.  Which seems like a bad idea as we'd be
effectively creating users that couldn't maintain their own computers --
which is not good.  We need to make the update solutions we deploy
empowering for users, not make them more dependent on professionals.
Now, I'm not saying that we're there, but I think that should be the
goal.

For your specific case I'd say just blank /etc/apt/sources.list and keep
a backup copy around for when you come to service the machine.  Then you
can just apt-get update and apt-get dist-upgrade.  And move the blank
file back.

		--Ted