Tech Spec: Software Updates

[Jaroslav Reznik]

----- Original Message -----
> Hi,
> sorry for bringing up something that has probably been discussed here
> several times already.
> 
> I went across the Software Updates section:
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Workstation/Technical_Specification#Software_updates
> 
> It's not very descriptive, but I guess by using PackageKit we will also
> be using offline updates.
> I've told been told theoretical issues of online updates many times, I
> don't need anyone to repeat that.
> 
> The fact is that the offline updates have been received mostly
> negatively by users from what I read on the Internet or hear from people
> at events. But what really worries me is a much higher number of users
> with broken package databases or even whole systems asking for help on
> forums. When we got down to the problem we found out the user
> interrupted offline updates (they took too long, or they even got stuck
> and they didn't even know the system was being updated).
> 
> The offline updates as they are done now seem to be confusing to them.
> I see more and more often advices from experienced users such as "if you
> want reliable updates, use yum update" which is probably not the kind of
> solution we want for workstation users.
> 
> I know we're not switching back to online updates, but we might want to
> reassess how they're done now. Maybe making more obvious that the system
> is being updated and the process is not yet over, or excluding packages
> that really don't need offline update so that the update time is much
> shorter?

There was previous discussion about rollback mechanism. So in case you
interrupt offline updates and your system gets to the unusable state,
you'd have option to roll back to the previous state (or even it could
be done automatically as one can expect interrupted update is probably
broken). 

> I must admit that I also have started using "yum update" although I
> always used the gui tool on my laptop as the most convenient way to
> update.

But yeah, yum update is what I use too :).

Jaroslav

> Jiri
> 
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