Bug#861495: plasma-discover: recommend apt-config-auto-update instead of software-properties-kde
On 30/04/17 00:41:17 CEST, Matthias Klumpp wrote:
> PackageKit aleady updates the cache periodically
By default? I have different machines with Stretch and the default kde
installation, there was no evidence ever that that happened automatically. I
always had to to check for updates manually in plasma-discover. Of course, I
was able to set the automatic update via s-p-kde but it wasn't set by default.
> there is no point in having another tool trying to do the same in the
> background. The only thing that this might end in is two things fighting over
> the APT database lock in the background, which is undesired.
My suggestion was in fact to recommend apt-config-auto-update *instead of*
s-p-kde. About this point, what should be the default mechanism in Debian to
update the cache and/or enable automatic updates? Something related to APT or
PackageKit only? The manuals still suggest to use and configure apt to do that
(mentioning apticron, apt-config-auto-update and unattend-upgrades for the
convenience of the users). And by the way, s-p-kde does exactly that by
(also?) writing the file /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/10periodic. This is why I don't
understand why the two packages cannot be interchangeable.
> > What benefits if I may ask? The sources.list can be edited already in
> > plasma-discover without s-p-kde,
>
> You can only remove sources, you can't add or edit them
You're right. But I just tried to edit my sources with s-p-kde. It crashes
when adding new sources and it automatically enables them and adds a commented
deb-src line. I had to manually check for errors my sources.list anyway.
Also, the interface is misleading due to bug 443643 [1] (a bug of 10 years
ago). In this way it is still better to edit the sources.list with a text
editor.
> or look at which GPG keys ou have installed for them on your system
I don't know if you're talking about the same functionality provided by
apt-key, but s-p-kde simply displays nothing under "Trusted software
providers", while apt-key shows correctly all the keys.
> You can also not enable/disable backports or updates via a simple click.
Maybe yes but still the interface is misleading due to bug 721662 [2].
> > and what remains is the possibility to choose if
> > automatically install security updates (but I suppose unattended-upgrades
> > does exactly that) or download all the updates in background or just
> > notify about it.
>
> These are exactly the features that might be broken, as they rely on
> other tools and s-p-kde doesn't interface well with PackageKit.
> Everything else works.
Well, because of the issues above, I'm not convinced of the benefits of this
package. Right now I still think that the updates can be managed better by
editing the proper files in /etc/apt/ and that the usage of apt-config-auto-
update and unattended-upgrades provides a better setting for the average user.
Thank you for the useful clarifications and for your time.
Regards
Francesco
[1] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=443643
[2] https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=721662
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