Bug#861495: plasma-discover: recommend apt-config-auto-update instead of software-properties-kde
2017-04-29 19:40 GMT+02:00 Francesco De Vita <francesco.devita@inventati.org>:
> Package: plasma-discover
> Version: 5.8.5-3
> Severity: wishlist
>
> Dear Maintainer,
>
> plasma-discover recommends software-properties-kde, a package that allows via
> GUI to:
> - manage the entries in the sources.list
> - set periodic update and automatic upgrades
> - opt in/out from the popularity contest
>
> However the software-properties-* packages still have important and old bugs
> unresolved that undermine the user experience and, by default, do not enable
> automatic updates when installed.
>
> A better alternative could be the installation of plasma-discover with
> apt-config-auto-update instead, which provides "configuration snippets for the
> Apt package manager to have it automatically update its package cache".
>
> In this way:
> - the sources.list can still be managed using plasma-discover directly
> - automatic updates are enabled by default
>
> Despite the lack of a couple of features provided by software-properties-kde,
> this configuration could be better for a basic installation.
software-properties-kde and apt-config-auto-update do different things.
The apt-config-auto-update package enables automatic periodic cache
updates on systems that *do not* use PackageKit. For systems where
PackageKit is installed, the PK frontend uses PackageKit to request
update information. By doing that, downloads of updates or update
information can be avoided on a metered connection and generally be
planned better by the system.
The software-properties-kde application allows configuring the update
interval (does nothing here...) but also allows people to edit the
software sources installed on the system. It's basically a GUI editor
for /etc/apt/sources.list. And that is the reason why Discover depends
on it.
Granted, software-properties-kde has quite some flaws, some of them
are addressed at the moment, but in general this tool is
undermaintained in Debian, some help with updating it would be nice.
Regardless of that, having it brings enough benefit to the users that
it is included here.
tl;dr: To get automatic updates, you don't need apt-config-auto-update
at all as long as you have Discover installed. The periodic updates /
automatic updates function in software-properties-kde is broken if you
use Discover, but its other functions warrant its inclusion still.
Help to get s-p-kde to behave better would be appreciated.
Cheers,
Matthias
--
Debian Developer | Freedesktop-Developer
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