Disadvantages of offline updates

[Brian Marshall]

Hi,

I have a couple issues with the new offline updates feature ("Install Updates &
Restart" in the GNOME Shell menu).

The first issue: users can no longer review the updates before they install
them. The list of updates is not shown at any step of the update process
anymore for offline updates.

That seems weird to me, and it's a departure from other Linux distros, as well
as Windows and OS X. You *can* manually look at the list with the PackageKit
GUI or yum itself, but you have to go out of your way to do that - it doesn't
pop up as a notification anymore.

Are there any plans to let users review these updates, or is that considered
something users shouldn't see anymore?

The second issue: forcing people to restart to install updates will lead to
some users (like me) putting off those updates because they don't want to
restart, which is insecure.

Even though with the way Linux file handles work, running applications wouldn't
automatically get security updates anyway, at least newly launched or restarted
applications would. Logging out would work for user applications as well. Both
of those are less intrusive than a restart.

I know you can go to Software -> Check for Updates and bypass offline updates
entirely, but that's a lot less convenient than waiting for a "software updates
are available" notification and clicking the button there.

Was it deemed that increased update procrastination from users is still a
worthy trade-off?

Thanks.
-- Brian