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How are updates handled in Debian 9?

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road hazard
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How are updates handled in Debian 9?

#1 Post by road hazard »

In Windows land (and in Linux Mint and lots of other distros).... when updates are available, a little icon pops up in the bottom corner letting you know. Is Debian 9 the same? Will I get alerted when something new is ready to be downloaded/installed?

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dilberts_left_nut
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Re: How are updates handled in Debian 9?

#2 Post by dilberts_left_nut »

Only if you are running an update-notifier of some description.
I think the gnome desktop includes one by default.
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Re: How are updates handled in Debian 9?

#3 Post by GarryRicketson »

I certainly hope they don't start doing that with Debian as well,
I hate those "pop up" icon things, trying to get me to install the newest, shiniest
update,... With Linux Mint, that was the main reason I stopped using it, combined
with 95% of the time the "updates" were what broke the system.
Post by dilberts_left_nut » I think the gnome desktop includes one by default.
I think you are right, and that was another reason I stopped using Gnome as well,
but that is in another topic. :mrgreen:

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Re: How are updates handled in Debian 9?

#4 Post by kedaha »

Sorry not to answer the question but I'd just like to comment that I think the update-notifier is useful for non-technical users who just use a stable desktop system at work or at home for run-of-the-mill desktop purposes. And, running stable, there's absolutely no risk of destabilising the system because it only gets stable updates. I keep a number of such machines up to date by connecting to them via ssh and running apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgrade. It surprises me is that elderly users like some of my friends and relatives never run the command even though I've left simple, written instructions how to update the system so I just do it myself.
My view is that since a stable desktop system can be used by anyone who only possesses user skills even though they've neither set up nor configured the system themselves, the update-notifier is just a useful part of such a desktop system for those who need it.
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Lysander
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Re: How are updates handled in Debian 9?

#5 Post by Lysander »

I have only been using Debian 9 since Sunday and have had no update notification as yet. However I seem to remember when checking through the command line that one or two were available via apt full-upgrade which I didn't get 'notified' for.

Having been a Windows user since the 90s those desktop notification irons seriously irked me: "an update is available for Java/Adobe etc etc" and it was the main reason why I didn't use Manjaro, the user gets a lot of those.

I tend to disable any update notifications. In spite of that I haven't seen any so far in 9.

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Re: How are updates handled in Debian 9?

#6 Post by road hazard »

Lysander wrote:I have only been using Debian 9 since Sunday and have had no update notification as yet. However I seem to remember when checking through the command line that one or two were available via apt full-upgrade which I didn't get 'notified' for.

Having been a Windows user since the 90s those desktop notification irons seriously irked me: "an update is available for Java/Adobe etc etc" and it was the main reason why I didn't use Manjaro, the user gets a lot of those.

I tend to disable any update notifications. In spite of that I haven't seen any so far in 9.
Guess I'm on the opposite side of the fence on this one. I have zero issues with getting alerts about things needing updates. Vulnerabilities happen and being visually alerted that an update is ready is an invaluable option. Maybe some sort of update indicator should be included with Debian and like Windows, would give you the option to toggle it 'on' for people that want the alert and toggle it 'off' for people that don't.

Just my $0.02.

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Re: How are updates handled in Debian 9?

#7 Post by Lysander »

I'm quite sure that it's there and it is possible to turn it on and off, certainly in GNOME. I tend to perform three checks on a daily basis anyway - sudo apt-get autoremove, apt-get update and apt full-upgrade - which lets me decide when to check for updates. I tend to strongly dislike a popup appearing when I'm working, advising me I can upgrade some software, when it is highly likely to be irrelevant to the task I am engaged in. Nevertheless, I realise that not everyone feels the same in that.
Last edited by Lysander on 2017-06-22 11:40, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: How are updates handled in Debian 9?

#8 Post by Hallvor »

I guess you have the coice between:
-Manual CLI updates without notification
-Manual GUI updates with popup notification
-Automatic updates

If you prefer the latter (as root):

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# apt-get install unattended-upgrades && dpkg-reconfigure unattended-upgrades
There is an update indicator in KDE, but I disabled it because all security updates are being installed silently in the background.
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Re: How are updates handled in Debian 9?

#9 Post by kalwisti »

@wizard10000,

Thanks very much for the tip about these two packages. :) I'll definitely try them out, and have already made a note of them in my personal Debian "cheat sheet" (things to do after installing Debian, how to customize it, etc.).
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Re: How are updates handled in Debian 9?

#10 Post by Caitlin »

road hazard wrote:
Guess I'm on the opposite side of the fence on this one. I have zero issues with getting alerts about things needing updates. Vulnerabilities happen and being visually alerted that an update is ready is an invaluable option. Maybe some sort of update indicator should be included with Debian and like Windows, would give you the option to toggle it 'on' for people that want the alert and toggle it 'off' for people that don't.

Just my $0.02.
Are you specifically talking about security updates? Security updates could be considered urgent; while app bug fixes and new features not so urgent.

I'm not too sure, but I think you can run some sort of upgrade process just for security issues. You can run it once a week to pick up any new security fixes. It's not necessary to know if there are any new fixes out there; if there aren't any, it will just do nothing.

Caitlin

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Re: How are updates handled in Debian 9?

#11 Post by pylkko »

I checked out Gnome DE on Debian 9 and indeed, it does notifiy about updates and even offers to install them upon poweroff. I believe that it is still the case that unless you enable stable-updates in sources.list you will only get the point releases, which are:
https://wiki.debian.org/DebianReleases/PointReleases wrote:Even stable is updated once in a while. Those updates are called "Point Releases". They usually incorporate the security fixes released until the time of the update and fixes for grave bugs in the current release. They are prepared by the Stable Release Managers (SRM). As of February 2009 they should happen at about every two months
If you have stretch-updates in sources.list then you will get some of the stuff in the point releases earlier. (https://wiki.debian.org/StableUpdates)

I don't think there is much point in manually updating stuff three times a day like some one here said. If you want to do that kind of stuff you can either write a bash script that does

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apt update && apt upgrade && apt clean
call it "updater.sh" and run it manually, or make a .service file that does

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apt update
every day and then ssh in once a week and just do upgrade to see what it suggests installing.. or maybe even skip that and automate every part. Althougg this last suggestion is always a bit dangerous because it has happened in the past that even stable installs have had issues after updates.

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