Re: gnome-software is using up my internet data
On Thu, Nov 15, 2018 at 06:56:19AM -0500, Anil Duggirala wrote:
> Hello,
> Ive got 2 questions:
> 1. The process gnome-software is downloading up of 10 MB every time
> (or many times) I connect to the internet, this is killing my internet
> data quota.
> Can someone tell me how to disable this, what exactly is
> gnome-software doing (it does not seem to be searching for updates)?
>
I find this sort of thing intensely frustrating. As a software
engineer, it is unacceptable to me when default settings are chosen
without considering the potential harm to those whose situations don't
satisfy the developer's assumptions. In this regard, the whole
gnome-software mess is just as bad as the near total inability to
control when and how updates are downloaded/installed in Windows 10.
Now that I got that off my chest, here is the change I had to make in
/etc:
--- a/xdg/autostart/gnome-software-service.desktop
+++ b/xdg/autostart/gnome-software-service.desktop
@@ -3,4 +3,5 @@ Type=Application
Name=GNOME Software
Exec=/usr/bin/gnome-software --gapplication-service
OnlyShowIn=GNOME;Unity;
-NoDisplay=true
+NoDisplay=false
+X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false
By the way, systemd is also part of the problem in this area too. For
example, if you check the output of these commands:
systemctl status apt-daily
systemctl status apt-daily-upgrade
I had to mask them on all of my systems because: a) on my servers and
workstations I already have a solution that I like (cron-apt) which
systemd's apt-daily sometimes interfered with; and b) on my laptops I
consider it unacceptable that system boot automatically kicks off an apt
update, especially when I am tethered to my phone or on crappy hotel
wifi.
This is another one of the areas where I feel Debian has fallen short
with regard to the "universal OS" philosophy. I personally think that
those defaults are wrong and that those services should default to
"off". But even if the decision is made to default them to "on",
disabling them should be trivially easy. I've been a Debian developer
for more than a decade and a Debian user longer than that and it took
quite a while for me to figure out that either of the above things was
happening and then to figure out what to do about it.
> 2. Is there a way to set a metered connection in debian so every time
> I connect using usb tethering the system knows not to use more data
> than completely necessary at the time?
> Or every time I use a particular connection it know not to use more
> data than necessary?
>
I don't think that this is possible. I mean, network-manager can't even
manage to connect to a VPN without leaking your DNS queries, so I would
completely shocked to find that it had support like you describe. Your
best bet is to just disable the offending services.
Regards,
-Roberto
--
Roberto C. Sánchez
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