PackageKit run scheduling?

[Ryan Lynch]

PackageKit has been driving me nuts, lately.  It will kick off installing
updates in the middle of the day, while I'm trying to work, which drives my
load average up to 3 or 4, basically making the machine unusable.

Is there a way to control when PackageKit runs?  I'd like to schedule it to
download and install all updates at 3 AM, every night.

Alternatively, how do I disable PackageKit entirely?

-Ryan

[Richard Hughes]

On Wed, 2009-04-22 at 13:11 -0400, Ryan Lynch wrote:
>  PackageKit has been driving me nuts, lately.  It will kick off
>  installing updates in the middle of the day, while I'm trying to work,
>  which drives my load average up to 3 or 4, basically making the
>  machine unusable. 
Sure, that sucks. You could try changing BackendSpawnNiceValue
in /etc/PackageKit/PackageKit.conf which might help a little.

>  Is there a way to control when PackageKit runs?  I'd like to
> schedule
>  it to download and install all updates at 3 AM, every night. 
There's not yet a "time" option, although that would be a valid feature
request. Such a time option begs the question about secondary policy,
like what to do if the user specifies updates should be installed at 5AM
and then goes to bed early for two weeks.

>  Alternatively, how do I disable PackageKit entirely? 
System -> Preferences -> Software updates, although I would prefer you
help us fix the problem, rather than taking that option :-)

Richard.

[Suvayu Ali]

2009/4/22 Richard Hughes <hughsient(a)gmail.com&gt;:
>  On Wed, 2009-04-22 at 13:11 -0400, Ryan Lynch wrote:
> > PackageKit has been driving me nuts, lately.  It will kick off
> > installing updates in the middle of the day, while I'm trying to work,
> > which drives my load average up to 3 or 4, basically making the
> > machine unusable.
>
>  Sure, that sucks. You could try changing BackendSpawnNiceValue
>  in /etc/PackageKit/PackageKit.conf which might help a little.
>
> > Is there a way to control when PackageKit runs?  I'd like to schedule
> > it to download and install all updates at 3 AM, every night.
>
>  There's not yet a "time" option, although that would be a valid feature
>  request. Such a time option begs the question about secondary policy,
>  like what to do if the user specifies updates should be installed at 5AM
>  and then goes to bed early for two weeks.
>
> > Alternatively, how do I disable PackageKit entirely?
>
>  System -> Preferences -> Software updates, although I would prefer you
>  help us fix the problem, rather than taking that option :-)
>  
Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to put in some feature requests for
Packagekit. Where would be the appropriate place for this? More
importantly, I'm more interested in getting those included in Fedora.
So if some of these features get implemented, how long will it be
before it gets accepted in Fedora?

Thanks for any replies.

-- 
Suvayu

Open source is the future. It sets us free.

[Richard Hughes]

On Wed, 2009-04-22 at 10:57 -0700, suvayu ali wrote:
>  Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to put in some feature requests for
>  Packagekit. Where would be the appropriate place for this? 
Either on the PackageKit mailing list (probably best) or Fedora or
Freedesktop bugzilla.

>  More importantly, I'm more interested in getting those included
> in Fedora. 
Excellent. I don't think this feature would require much time at all.

>  So if some of these features get implemented, how long will it be
>  before it gets accepted in Fedora? 
Well, if it needs string additions or changes (which it probably will)
then it can't go into F10 as it's string-frozen. I'm sticking with the
GNOME release schedule for gnome-packagekit, and rawhide and F11 are now
shipping an unstable series, and so any addition would be very easy to
add. Hypothetically, if a perfect patch hit my Inbox tomorrow, it would
be in Fedora 11 on the second of May. If it took a month of coding then
it would be in f11-updates-testing on the first of June. I'm pretty
aggressive with release schedules.

>  Thanks for any replies. 
No problem. Join the PackageKit mailing list. We're a friendly bunch of
people :-)

Richard.

[Kevin Kofler]

Richard Hughes wrote:
>  Well, if it needs string additions or changes (which it probably
> will)
>  then it can't go into F10 as it's string-frozen. I'm sticking with the
>  GNOME release schedule for gnome-packagekit, and rawhide and F11 are now
>  shipping an unstable series, and so any addition would be very easy to
>  add. 
Speaking of that, is there any chance we can have PackageKit 0.4 in F10
updates at some point? KPackageKit 0.4 requires it and there are plenty of
improvements there over the old 0.3.1 release we're currently shipping.

        Kevin Kofler

[Richard Hughes]

On Thu, 2009-04-23 at 01:41 +0200, Kevin Kofler wrote:
>  Speaking of that, is there any chance we can have PackageKit 0.4 in
> F10
>  updates at some point? KPackageKit 0.4 requires it and there are plenty of
>  improvements there over the old 0.3.1 release we're currently shipping. 
There's no technical reason why this can't be done. I talked with Steven
M. Parrish a few weeks ago and he said:

"My opinion is to leave F9/F10 with the 0.3.x family and only upgrade
if/when all the translations are done or if a new feature in the 0.4.x
family is needed."

Which I agreed with. Most of the new strings in PK 0.4 have now been
translated, and so if you need the 0.4.x features, it might be a good
time to upgrade. My only slight worry is the fact that the codec
installer interface has changed slightly, so we'll need a newer build of
gnome-packagekit, which depends on a newer GTK.

It might be best to create a PackageKit franken-package with the same
interfaces as F10 (quite easy with git), and still get all the daemon
and backend improvements of 0.4.x.

Richard.

[Beartooth]

On Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:31:01 +0100, Richard Hughes wrote:
	[...]
> > Is there a way to control when PackageKit runs?  I'd like to
> schedule
> > it to download and install all updates at 3 AM, every night.
>  
>  There's not yet a "time" option, although that would be a valid feature
>  request. Such a time option begs the question about secondary policy,
>  like what to do if the user specifies updates should be installed at 5AM
>  and then goes to bed early for two weeks.
>  
> > Alternatively, how do I disable PackageKit entirely?
>  
>  System -> Preferences -> Software updates, although I would prefer you
>  help us fix the problem, rather than taking that option :-) 
	Not to be contentious, but because I want to know if I'm missing 
anything : what is the benefit of running PackageKit, rather than "yum 
clean all" followed by "yum update" at *my* convenience daily? 

-- 
Beartooth Staffwright, PhD, Neo-Redneck Linux Convert
Remember I know precious little of what I am talking about.

[Richard Hughes]

On Wed, 2009-04-22 at 18:29 +0000, Beartooth wrote:
>  Not to be contentious, but because I want to know if I'm missing
>
>  anything : what is the benefit of running PackageKit, rather than "yum 
>  clean all" followed by "yum update" at *my* convenience daily?  
Well, codec installing, mime type installing, font installing, plugin
and dictionary installing.... removing the whole infrastructure makes a
lot of the other bits stop working. It's perfectly okay to leave it
installed, and just not let it ever check for updates itself. It also
allows you to use yum and rpm directly without getting in the way.

Have a look at www.packagekit.org if you need to see use-cases and
screenshots. Thanks.

Richard.

[Robin Laing]

Richard Hughes wrote:
>  On Wed, 2009-04-22 at 18:29 +0000, Beartooth wrote:
> > Not to be contentious, but because I want to know if I'm missing 
> > anything : what is the benefit of running PackageKit, rather than "yum 
> > clean all" followed by "yum update" at *my* convenience daily? 
>  
>  Well, codec installing, mime type installing, font installing, plugin
>  and dictionary installing.... removing the whole infrastructure makes a
>  lot of the other bits stop working. It's perfectly okay to leave it
>  installed, and just not let it ever check for updates itself. It also
>  allows you to use yum and rpm directly without getting in the way.
>  
>  Have a look at www.packagekit.org if you need to see use-cases and
>  screenshots. Thanks.
>  
>  Richard.
>  
>   
I can do all these with Yumex which interface I prefer.  I tried 
packagekit when I installed F10 but still found yumex is better.

I removed it.

I may try it again when F11 comes out.

-- 
Robin Laing

[Robin Laing]

Beartooth wrote:
>  On Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:31:01 +0100, Richard Hughes wrote:
>  	[...]
> >> Is there a way to control when PackageKit runs?  I'd like to schedule
> >> it to download and install all updates at 3 AM, every night.
> > There's not yet a "time" option, although that would be a valid
> feature
> > request. Such a time option begs the question about secondary policy,
> > like what to do if the user specifies updates should be installed at 5AM
> > and then goes to bed early for two weeks.
> >
> >> Alternatively, how do I disable PackageKit entirely?
> > System -> Preferences -> Software updates, although I would prefer you
> > help us fix the problem, rather than taking that option :-)
>  
>  	Not to be contentious, but because I want to know if I'm missing 
>  anything : what is the benefit of running PackageKit, rather than "yum 
>  clean all" followed by "yum update" at *my* convenience daily? 
>   
I don't do the "yum clean all" but I prefer manually doing updates when 
it is convenient for me.  Due to my work, I sometimes don't update for 3 
or 4 days because of application issues.

-- 
Robin Laing