Linux Mint's Update Manager To Encourage Users To Apply Security Updates

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux Mint's Update Manager To Encourage Users To Apply Security Updates

Last week the Linux Mint project shared the troubling news how many of its users are behind on important security updates or in some cases even running end-of-life versions. In trying to help address the issue, Linux Mint is working on improvements to its Update Manager to encourage users to apply updates...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-Mint-Feb-2021

[kneekoo]

Welp, that blog post went to the market.


P.S. It's back online.

[nranger]

My initial reaction to "insisting on updates" is a resounding "eww". But then again, I'm not the target audience.

Reading the blog post however, my outlook is positive, with Clem saying, "We don’t want it to be dumb and get in your way though... We have key principles at Linux Mint. One of them is that this is your computer, not ours." I suppose a good starting point is looking at how updates are handled in Windows, and then not doing any of that BS.

[skeevy420]

Not to be a party pooper, but I assume that this is the Venn Diagram of "People who don't apply Mint updates" and "People reading the Mint Blog"
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Just saying that, sadly, there's very real chance that Clem's well thought out message did not get to its intended audience.

[skeevy420]

My initial reaction to "insisting on updates" is a resounding "eww". But then again, I'm not the target audience.

Reading the blog post however, my outlook is positive, with Clem saying, "We don’t want it to be dumb and get in your way though... We have key principles at Linux Mint. One of them is that this is your computer, not ours." I suppose a good starting point is looking at how updates are handled in Windows, and then not doing any of that BS.

Tell me about it. I built my PC day before yesterday, first custom build ever, and the Windows portion of the setup sucked so bad.

Manjaro disk from my old PC started up just fine, did verbose updates and told me every file updated and changed, after that I tweaked a few packages here and there due to the slight arch changes (Intel CPU to AMD APU), rebooted, and went on about my business. Took about 15 minutes start to finish.

Windows, OTOH, decided that it wanted to run a silent update while silently configuring new hardware while my system was starting up. Just constant disk thrashing for about an hour or two while I'm waiting on the usual system tray crap to load and I was finally prompted for a reboot that took 30 minutes and consisted of a screen, a Windows logo, and a spinning circle. Finally did the final touches and was done playing sys admin. Took about three hours start to finish.

[piorunz]

Next step will be to enable force fed updates by default and rename themselves to Linux Mint Windows edition. 😆

[ThoreauHD]

They have Grandparents and kids running this because it just works, with no virus downtime. Getting them to update when they can barely find the web browser should be an optional config on install. Have to assume the installer has some idea of what's best for the user.

[ThoreauHD]

Sidenote: They really need to look at live kernels when/if opting for automagic updates. Either go in heavy, or leave it be.

[horizonbrave]

I love automagic updates, it should be available in any distro (of course, verbose and with detailed report). 3 years Fedora user.

[Guest]

Sidenote: They really need to look at live kernels when/if opting for automagic updates. Either go in heavy, or leave it be.

Live patching isn't always an option I think. Sometimes you really do need to reboot.

But then I guess we almost never reboot our phones, so maybe it's not so bad to just keep running that kernel?