I would like to post a issue on bugtrack about the Reboot notification on system update.
I’v nudged several in my family into using openSUSE and have installed Leap 15.2 on the laptops. Resently looking over my wifes shoulder I noticed a lot of updates in the KDE status bar. I asked why she had not updated and was told that it did not make any difference!
I asked her to retry and it started the update process from gui: After downloading, updating started… and a popup was shows something like “To take full advantage of the updates bla bla… the computer needs to be rebooted” with a Reboot buttom. She imidially hit the Reboot button in the notification, effectively killing the update process. You cant really blame casual users for following advise shown in the gui
My reason for asking here is that I am not sure which part of the system to blame, so where to file the enhancement whish ? Do we have the same problem in other desktop environments. Is it a unforeseen effect of a zypper notification combined with KDE’s notification system?
You talk about “a gui”. What do you mean with that? YaST > Software > Online update or different?
I also do not quite understand this, but that may be because I have strong opinions here. How is it possible that your wife, that apparently is “just” and end-user, is able to update system software. Something that should be done by the system manager (the only one who knows the root password)?
AFAIK, hitting the “Reboot” button on the KDE Plasma System Update Plasmoid normally doesn’t do anything – immediately – normally the Package Manager waits until the update completes and then, reboots …
[HR][/HR]On the other hand, you can work around this issue for the concerned user, by changing a setting within the KDE System Settings → Workspace → Startup and Shutdown → Desktop Session – uncheck the “Offer options for shutdown” option.
Sorry I was not clear in my description, I struggle with the English language so the message get sometimes lost
Yes it is the notification/update circle with and uparrow in the KDE notification aera I am talking about. And to my experience that work quite well for the end user. Although my wife has root password and kdesudo rights, she is not asked for password when using this to update.
Thanks, but my reason for asking was more like, is this a KDE thing, a Zypper thing or the notification system.
Are you sure? I did not look that way to me. But I can not say for sure if the update did complete in the same second.
[HR][/HR]
Well I told wife to wait next time, so no change is needed on her machine. But I was just thinking… if she could do it, many other “end user” types could do the same thing.
I suspect what could be happening here is that the user sees the message about a reboot being required and goes to restart the computer from the KDE menu before the update completes. However I think (from memory) even zypper says something similar prior to doing the updates. What neither of these messages makes clear is that the reboot is required AFTER the update completes! Now anyone coming from a Windows environment knows that updates on that platform can require a reboot to complete the update, and this leads to confusion. I think these messages could be made clearer for the novice/new user that the reboot is required once the update process is complete. Yes it is obvious to many but not all.
I also have the opinion that that popup window requesting restart appears illogically before updating, not after.
I ignore it, because it appears only due to new kernel version and I always turn on and off my notebook every day, but for common user that illogical behaviour is confusing and not secure.
I am not using PackageKit (and thus de applet), but YaST > Software > Online Update. When a kernel update (and thus a reboot) is involved, an informational window pops up saying that a kernel update is involved and that thus, after the update, a reboot should be done asap.
This gived me the opportunity to:
carry on;
un-selecting the kernel update and carry on with the others that are offered;
postpone the whole action until a better moment.
After an update that installed a new kernel, I get a new pop-up, reminding me that I should do a boot asap. Again I can do this or not, but most often I then do it, because I am already prepared for this action by the first warning.
In general I browse through the patches (YaST >Onlne update == zypper patch) to see if any of them might interfere with what happens on the sytem at the moment. E.g. I know that a new Firefox installed may break a running Firefox. Again, either postpone or be prepared to stop Firefox and restart it when needed.
Even a bit more general, I have planned once a week to do those updates. My users (including myself) know that and are prepared to log out during that maintenance time.
Probably needless to say that in such a maintenance scenario, no “update applets” for end-users are required or even wanted (thus I have not installed PackageKit, nor the applet).
Doing an update blindly just because the applet says so isn’t a good idea IMHO (to say it mildly).
And the fact that through the applet this can be done without providing the root password is a break of security (did I already say that I have strong opinions here?)
And of course, when somebody knows the root password (apart from knowing it by e.g. glimpsing) (s)he apparently is entitled to act as system manager. And as such should have the knowledge and responsabilaty that comes with it.
I see nothing wrong here. The message ( I can even read that from Swedish ) clearly says “after updating”. My bet is that the whole update was not performed at all. The warning should be there, since a required reboot after updating is not always convenient, so the user can postpone the updates until a more convenient moment arrives.
I agree, the text Reboot is wrong, it should be OK I understand. But the OP says that after his wife clicked it, the system rebooted on the spot (not even waiting until the updates were finished). So it does what it says and not what we hope it will do
