Should the Update-Manager be installed by default?

[red-e-made]

Sorry when someone talks to me like he did I tend to not like it. I've seen others like that and it does burn me up.

So you can dish out hasty, foundless complaints but can't stand being corrected? As I pointed it, the majority of votes tallied so far are in favor of a mintUpdate-type tool. Had you bothered to count these votes more carefully before posting you would have seen that, and not complained that the poll results were being ignored.

If you take issue with my use of the word "whining", then maybe you'd consider thinking twice before firing off a baseless compaint. If that's "talking down to you", well, I don't know. Learn to take criticism better I guess.

[red-e-made]

red-e-made: There will be 5 levels of security updates, our own (level 1), tested and safe updates (level 2), not tested (level 3), potentially unsafe (level 4), not recommended (level 5). All updates will appear in mintUpdate and the user will be able to select all of them, but depending on their level they will show in different colors (green for level 1... all the way to red for level 5), be selected by default (level 1 and 2) or not (other levels), trigger a warning when selected (level 4 and 5), and only some levels will actually give you a notification... that means you won't get one for a kernel upgrade, but if there's a kernel upgrade and a level 1 upgrade, you'll get a notification.. and when you open mintUpdate you'll see a green selected update and an orange or red not-selected-by-default kernel upgrade.

It's actually trivial and it will make the whole process extremely easy, understandable and safe for the user. It's not even hard to program. Think of it as an Update Manager which assigns different levels depending on the packages and gives you more information about the risks involved.

It will get its upgrade information from the repositories and the meta-data about the packages directly from us. All packages we don't have data for will still appear and be available to the user (so you will actually get updates as soon as they hit the Ubuntu repos, without delays), they will default to level 3.

It's hard to describe like this. I'll post more about it in the blog and publish screenshots of the GUI as soon as I have something working.

OK that makes more sense. The more we can move away from Ubuntu, and maintain the spirit of security, user freedom, and stability, the better off we'll all be. Thanks again for all your efforts.

[alexander]

My thoughts are that I haven't personally ever had a single stability problem with updates... Mind you I have never had a security problem either.

However the latter may be thanks to the former.

[historyb]

Sorry when someone talks to me like he did I tend to not like it. I've seen others like that and it does burn me up.

So you can dish out hasty, foundless complaints but can't stand being corrected? As I pointed it, the majority of votes tallied so far are in favor of a mintUpdate-type tool. Had you bothered to count these votes more carefully before posting you would have seen that, and not complained that the poll results were being ignored.

You need to go back to school you can't count. So in the interest that you seem to be deficient in the math department, particularly the counting area here are the votes so far:

No 10% [ 8 ]
Yes 38% [ 28 ]
We should have a mint tool for this, and until then no. 16% [ 12 ]
We should have a mint tool for this, and until then yes. 32% [ 24 ]
Not sure, mixed feelings 1% [ 1 ]

I am sure you can see that a straight yes has 28 votes and a yes, with mint tool has 24.

If you take issue with my use of the word "whining", then maybe you'd consider thinking twice before firing off a baseless compaint. If that's "talking down to you", well, I don't know. Learn to take criticism better I guess.

It's people like yourself that runs newbies away from Linux, you should learn some posting manners. When a Person comes in with an opinion it is not your place to put that opinion down.

[David Chiang]

The decision to remove the update manager in Celena was taken long before code-freeze. I did notice a lot of worries and protestations though and this is why I made this poll, to know exactly how worried the community is with this decision.

I am confident mintUpdate will be a success and become popular among all of you. I will post regularly about it and have it released in Romeo before Daryna gets out. We needed a tool like this if we were to remove the Update Manager, and as this poll illustrates this need is quite urgent.

Hallo Clem,
first of all I have to say thank you for this fantastic distribution, and at second, it's a good sign when people start fighting in the forum. It shows how important your work has become now for the community, and also the high level of development. Your work is now irresistible for them at this stage and the discussion becomes very exciting. This is much better than being ignored, isn't it!?

Regards David

[Fabian]

I think red-e-made meant to count the yes and no votes with a mint tool, that's 36, and the yes votes are 28. Although you could also say that the yes votes are more (28+24).

Also, I think it is a good decision not to install the update manager by default. I would guess that most updates are not security updates, and most of them are from x.y.zz.qqq-dist-pp.aa to x.y.zz.qqq-dist-pp.a(a+1).

I installed mint with mythtv on the computer my parents have in their kitchen to watch television in the morning on. And my father has borked it a few times by updating when he was told.

[kosmonaut]

Hi!

Now, please help me out here. I think that I am missing something important in all this problem.
What I understood is that: It is not a good idea to have an update-manager (that comes from ubuntu) that wants to update LinuxMint up to a new distro level of ubuntu. (Like cassandra>gutsy). I do understand that.
But here come the point: Will a missing update-manager not increase "security holes" in the OS? I do not think that this is the intension of Clem, right? I personally prefer a secure OS to a stable OS that has known "security-holes" (so that malware software like Bundestrojaner, Magic Lantern, CIPAV or what ever could easy intrude into my computer (yeah I am paranoid ))

In my years using Linux (different distros) I never ever had a problem *after* installing security updates. And a updated Amarok was always a bliss
Now, tell me what problem did you have after installing packages proposed by the update-manager. Please give me a hint...what am I missing in all this issue

[Husse]

@ kosmonaut
This is a balance between stability and security.
In this forum you will find lots of people with problems after an update. New kernel breaks X and people don't see anything but a blank screen and don't know what's next (including me in my early days on the forum)
New kernel "breaks" intel chipsets so much so that I've posted a sticky about it
http://www.linuxmint.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3027
or ask the forum member Lolo Uila
There are also examples of sound problems after a kernel update...
So in my experience there is a lot, but mostly caused by updated to the kernel (I have seen other examples but I can't find them)

[exploder]

Husse is right about the kernel update, however the new kernel was quickly fixed. My system was affected by the update. I just booted and selected the original kernel and removed the new kernel until the problem was solved.

I posted a work around for the sound problem in the "How To" section of the forum.

I also prefer an up to date system with all of the security holes patched.

The Ubuntu development team built Feisty and the majority of Mint is Feisty. How can I not trust the developer's then?

I understand not wanting to update Cassandra or Celena with Gutsy updates but this can not happen unless the Gutsy repo's are added.

The update issue is causing a lot of concern on the forums. How will it affect the distro in the eyes of the world?

[exploder]

Here is an article I found on the subject of updates. The reader's comments are very interesting.

http://www.linux.com/feature/119162

[Monkwarrior]

Gents,

I could use a word of advice on the huge update after installing Mint tonight.
How can I decide which ones to update and which ones not ?
Is it without risk updating amarok for instance etc etc etc.
I don't have the knowledge nor insight to decide (and I doubt anyone here can oversee it all).
Should I leave everything as it is ?

Monk.

[NoClue!]

confused!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I,m pissed off! Since Bianca I've been ignorantly handing control of my system over to the orange box and now I find out this could be BAD. I just assumed someone smarter than I was behind needed updates, didn't know I was gambling with my system.

I've been busy fixing xp boxes from the latest round of crippling malware and I'm just one more outbreak away from having a good number of people convinced to switch to Mint. I tell them updating is just like windows, a couple of clicks and all your software is updated. Windows folks are not going to watch out for kernel versions.

Please fix the update process, make it fool proof. We're way too close now to blow it.

[FewClues]

From the release notes of Celena "The Update Manager and Update Notifier were removed from Celena so users would not perform un-educated upgrades. With more than 2 releases a year and many modules affected by upgrades, stability was preferred to security in Celena. No more pop-ups telling you a new version of Ubuntu became available, no more pop-ups telling you to download the latest kernel... your system is stable, tested and it should stay that way."

My thinking goes along with this. If a person has knowledge enough to understand the updates, they can go to Synaptic and load it on their system and do updates. If they don't understand that they can do that, then they probably don't understand what the updates are and will just hit the plunger and flush their machine.

IF one were to load the update manager after installing Celena then they would find 92 updates waiting on them - and those updates might make for a very interesting certification test. Part of them were security - part were from out of the community. I still can't figure out what two or three of them were.

I would vote for a defualt download that only did security changes, and would even be comfortable with those being done in the back ground (like the Shadow Upgrades from those guys in Washington).


My respect to the forum and thanks for letting me part of it.

[jonar]

I think that opinions on this issue are going to vary widely depending on personal preferences, experience, and free time.

I like the idea of identifying different "levels" of updates, and allowing people to choose - this seems to be the best of both worlds. If that can be available with Celena, that would be great.

For me personally, security updates are a high priority, and kernel updates (unless they are critical security updates) can wait till the next release cycle.

I've had bad experiences with kernel updates breaking things, mainly with some other distros I used to use.

With Mint and Ubuntu I have had no significant issues with the regular updates.

-Jonar-

[red-e-made]

You need to go back to school you can't count. I am sure you can see that a straight yes has 28 votes and a yes, with mint tool has 24.

Yeah, as was pointed out, I was combining the totals of those who said they wanted a mintTool for this, whether they voted for or against keeping the Update Manager. Sorry if this wasn't clear the first two times I said this.

It's people like yourself that runs newbies away from Linux, you should learn some posting manners. When a Person comes in with an opinion it is not your place to put that opinion down.

So where exactly do you make the distinction between an opinion and just "putting someone down"? It could be argued that your initial post here - an inaccurate charge that developers weren't paying attention to the poll - is pretty insulting. I personally find that sort of posting very offensive, especially since these people are working hard to provide you with a product that you get for FREE.

Criticism and opinions are always welcome of course, provided they're accurate. Yours wasn't. I pointed out said fact to you and you get upset, weighing your entire argument on my use of the word "whining". Fine, I apologize for saying you were whining. Are you going to apologize for levelling a baseless accusation against the people working hard to bring you a free OS?

[red-e-made]

(By the way everyone, I'm done. I promise not to reply to this guy unless he asks me a direct question, in which case I will answer him in PM. Thanks.)

[historyb]

Are you going to apologize for leveling a baseless accusation against the people working hard to bring you a free OS?

Apology accepted. No, I'm not, there was no baseless accusations, just questions. But instead of taking time to see what I really wrote you busted in like a bull in a china shop with the same results. It would do you well to read before talking.

I acknowledge it's his distro to do with as he pleases; However, I took umbrage with the poll going one way and the developer going another. Still in all it's his baby and he can do as he likes as I said in my original post. IMHO, if it's not going to go Ubuntu way than there should be a mint tool.

[clem]

I realize I haven't explained enough why the update manager could not be present in Celena. I insisted on the uneducated updates problem but there are two problems in fact:

1. update-manager and update-notifier depend on a package called update-manager-core. When Gutsy comes out, Ubuntu updates this package and you then get notified about the availability of Ubuntu Gutsy. First it doesn't "look" good for Mint to tell you you can "upgrade" to Ubuntu. Second if you click "yes" (which is trivial) the tool simply changes your repositories to Gutsy's and start brutally upgrading your system. Some of Mint's specifics get overwritten and you end up with something of a mix between Celena and Gutsy but not exactly the way we would have liked Daryna to look like if you see what I mean... in other words, there's nothing wrong with you upgrading Celena's package base from Feisty to Gutsy but it's something you want to do when you fully understand the consequences and how things work... This happened in Bianca when Feisty came out and a lot of people got confused by it. We got a lot of posts about people simply ending up reinstalling Bianca from the CD and forcing themselves not to click the "dangerous" button

2. The second problem was covered a lot. It's to do with uneducated upgrades. It's fine for people to upgrade most of the packages but when they do the kernel or some sensitive parts of their system they should be warned and explained the risks. We don't want people to break their system and as we can observe in this forum, this has happened a lot in the past with 2.6.17 upgrades in Bianca and 2.6.20 upgrades in Cassandra. The short term answer to that is no security upgrades, the long term answer is mintUpdate.

Now the problem is simple. Celena won't give security updates to novice users but we're getting ready to work on Daryna, it should come out faster than you think and it will ship with the new mintUpdate, so it's only a matter of a few months and in the meantime we'd much prefer novice users to have a stable system even if that means being a few month late on security updates.

Clem

[Toontwnca]

Do you think the Update Manager should be installed by default or not?

Please read this before voting: http://www.linuxmint.com/blog/?p=54

Thank you
Clem

I was wondering why I was not receiving any notice.

[trianglman]

I understand about the uneducated updates/distro upgrade. I myself was confused initially with the Feisty upgrade. However, the reason Windows (well, one of the reasons) is so insecure is that all of the programs need to be manually updated. The best option (I couldn't vote; I'm not sure if voting is closed or what) is to have a Mint specific version so that it doesn't push the Ubuntu upgrades. I do think, though, that an update system that gives too many upgrade options (especially when you have the option to choose which updates to install) is better than not notifying users that security updates are available.

Thank you for a great distro. I look forward to Celena and beyond.

EDIT: Once I signed in it allowed me to vote, so now my voice is added to that cacophony too.