4 ms·

Are people not using auto-update?

ravenstine 7y ago
Why would I want to wake up in the morning to find my laptop not working? This issue is exactly why I only occasionally install updates, and if I do I wait a while for the canaries to leave the coal mine. I've been a user of macOS, distros of Linux, and Windows for years, and in every one of them there was the inevitable update that made the OS unusable. It happens rarely but, when it does, it's a miserable experience.
- wuunderbar 7y ago
  Interested in hearing about a Linux update that made the system unusable.
  - therealx 7y ago
    Are you kidding? I've had config files overwritten, x11/wayland/whatever just break after an update, wirelesss/power drivers just...change, sometimes to the point of having to recover it from a mono-screen tty, or updates fuck up the fs or something else that requires me to hit up single user mode.
    - virtualwhys 7y ago
      Have been on Fedora for 10 years; the only thing that "reliably" breaks is the proprietary Nvidia driver. Otherwise Linux is pretty damn rock solid. These days "it just works" applies to Linux more than any other OS. And with the new Nvidia-less Dell Precision 5400 the system runs cool and quiet to boot. Linux isn't what it used to be...
    - ravenstine 7y ago
      Yeah, I got a black screen on boot on more than one occasion because of some change to either X11 or its config after updating. It's probably a rite of passage for a seasoned Linux user to figure out how to undo the damage to their `/etc/x11/xorg.conf`. (then again, I stopped using linux about 4 years ago, so maybe that's changed)
      - teddyh 7y ago
        It has changed, yes. Most people don’t even have an /etc/X11/xorg.conf file anymore; it’s all autodetected now.
  - tsechin 7y ago
    I recently had to work around https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1806329 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1806329 by installing and selecting a specific (older) kernel. On affected versions, my wifi wouldn't come up. Granted it wasn't strictly "bricked", but I think no-wifi meets some of the bars for unusable. So yes, bad updates do happen.
  - dodobirdlord 7y ago
    Last time I tried to update a Linux install I was trying to go from Ubuntu 16.04 to 18.04, LTS to LTS. It crashed during the update and corrupted the initial install, throwing me back to grub to try to undo the damage.
  - danieldk 7y ago
    The Linux 5.4 (LTS!) and 5.5 releases had consistent hangs on many Intel GPUs that use the i915 driver. I had to revert back to 4.19.x on my Linux machine. https://linuxreviews.org/Linux_Kernel_5.5_Will_Not_Fix_The_Frequent_Intel_GPU_Hangs_In_Recent_Kernels https://linuxreviews.org/Linux_Kernel_5.5_Will_Not_Fix_The_F... They should be fixed by now, but basically the latest LTS kernel was broken for 3-4 months on many Intel GPUs.
  - qplex 7y ago
    Me too. People fail to grasp the difference between rendering the whole system unusable and just the OS. On a PC pretty much the only thing that can brick the machine is a BIOS update.
apostacy 7y ago
The first thing I always do is disable auto-updates. Auto updating does not deserve the level of trust we put it in it. Just a few months ago, Google's creepy invisible updater rendered people's Apples unbootable if they didn't have SIP enabled, which many people including myself have good reason not to[1]. Thankfully, I had already blocked Keystone Agent with an immutable folder. This auto-updating treadmill we've been sold on is really beneficial for developers, but it causes some major problems for end-users. I have honestly lost track of the number of times I have had an update cripple a device. My iPad got ruined, my PS3 lost Linux, iTunes removed p2p music sharing in a deceptive update, Cisco gutted residential routers and forced people onto their crummy new platform[2]... I could go on and on. And this isn't even counting Android. I had a friend lose Miracast support in an Android update, minutes before he had to give a presentation. And those are all examples of updates functioning as intended, even though they are against the interests of the users. I can add more citations if anyone is curious. So no, if you use your device for anything important, then don't update it until you've made a backup, and had a chance to read up on any potential problems. It really says something that in this day and age, I've had to become much more vigilant about backing up my data than ever before. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21064663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21064663 [2]: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/06/29/1425210/cisco-pushing-cloud-connect-router-firmware-allows-web-history-tracking https://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/06/29/1425210/cisco-pushi...
- userbinator 7y ago
  This auto-updating treadmill we've been sold on is really beneficial for developers, but it causes some major problems for end-users. How so? If anything, I think it's just as bad for developers, who expect a stable foundation to be able to build on.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - apostacy 7y ago
    Because forcing everything to be evergreen means that they only have to support the latest version. They can also corral users away from less common and older platforms. One thing I really don't like about it, is how it forces you to spend more money on the latest hardware you don't need. Something is broken when I can't use a three year old phone to pay a parking ticket in my city. And they can just scoff at me and say that it is my fault for daring to go two years without buying a new device. Being evergreen means that any vulnerabilities in DRM and platform integrity are swept away under a tide of updates. As long as you are constantly pushing updates, and making it very hard for people to use an out of date version, you don't have to worry nearly as much. Finally, in the bigger picture, it strategically makes sense because it keeps your competitors aiming at a moving target. Why do you think it is easier to install an older operating system than it is to install an older version of Chrome? Do you really think it is solely about your security and safety? Of course not. They don't care about end user security or privacy nearly as much as they do about keeping their platform secured. In fact, it is still easy to buy out a trusted Chrome extension and attack users. There is still no possible way to disable extension updates. Google knows about this and they won't change their architecture in any major way; they just keep the updates and revocations rolling and rolling, and any users who are hurt by this are an acceptable loss.
sneak 7y ago
Auto update is granting RCE to the vendor, as well as anyone who can compel the vendor to push updates to your device. The Apple updater system can target specific machines (not sure if it’s by serial or MAC address or what). I do not want point and click military intelligence RCE capability on my machines.
jillesvangurp 7y ago
I disable them for two reasons: 1) they take ages to complete and I want to run them on my schedule instead of being forced to take a 40-60 minute chunk out of my schedule. 2) there's always a risk of an update breaking something and if that happens, I'm OK with being a few days/weeks behind. In recent years, big OSX updates are effectively a beta release until the second service release or so. Also, they have been enormously underwhelming in the sense that I can barely tell them apart. There's generally very little in them that I need/want. I don't use any of the bundled software (mail, icloud, the office stuff, etc). All I care about is being able to run my browser (Firefox), Homebrew, some games (quite a few less as of Catalina), and development tools like vs code, intellij, docker. I actually updated my imac to the latest Catalina last weekend, and applied the fix we're discussing here a few days ago to be able to run the latest x-plane beta with a new rendering engine that uses metal (and vulkan elsewhere); it complained it needed the latest driver. Didn't break anything for me luckily. My mac book pro is not getting the supplemental upgrade until I know it's not going to ruin my day.

Why would I want to wake up in the morning to find my laptop not working? This issue is exactly why I only occasionally install updates, and if I do I wait a while for the canaries to leave the coal mine. I've been a user of macOS, distros of Linux, and Windows for years, and in every one of them there was the inevitable update that made the OS unusable. It happens rarely but, when it does, it's a miserable experience.

wuunderbar 7y ago
Interested in hearing about a Linux update that made the system unusable.
- therealx 7y ago
  Are you kidding? I've had config files overwritten, x11/wayland/whatever just break after an update, wirelesss/power drivers just...change, sometimes to the point of having to recover it from a mono-screen tty, or updates fuck up the fs or something else that requires me to hit up single user mode.
  - virtualwhys 7y ago
    Have been on Fedora for 10 years; the only thing that "reliably" breaks is the proprietary Nvidia driver. Otherwise Linux is pretty damn rock solid. These days "it just works" applies to Linux more than any other OS. And with the new Nvidia-less Dell Precision 5400 the system runs cool and quiet to boot. Linux isn't what it used to be...
  - ravenstine 7y ago
    Yeah, I got a black screen on boot on more than one occasion because of some change to either X11 or its config after updating. It's probably a rite of passage for a seasoned Linux user to figure out how to undo the damage to their `/etc/x11/xorg.conf`. (then again, I stopped using linux about 4 years ago, so maybe that's changed)
    - teddyh 7y ago
      It has changed, yes. Most people don’t even have an /etc/X11/xorg.conf file anymore; it’s all autodetected now.
- tsechin 7y ago
  I recently had to work around https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1806329 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1806329 by installing and selecting a specific (older) kernel. On affected versions, my wifi wouldn't come up. Granted it wasn't strictly "bricked", but I think no-wifi meets some of the bars for unusable. So yes, bad updates do happen.
- dodobirdlord 7y ago
  Last time I tried to update a Linux install I was trying to go from Ubuntu 16.04 to 18.04, LTS to LTS. It crashed during the update and corrupted the initial install, throwing me back to grub to try to undo the damage.
- danieldk 7y ago
  The Linux 5.4 (LTS!) and 5.5 releases had consistent hangs on many Intel GPUs that use the i915 driver. I had to revert back to 4.19.x on my Linux machine. https://linuxreviews.org/Linux_Kernel_5.5_Will_Not_Fix_The_Frequent_Intel_GPU_Hangs_In_Recent_Kernels https://linuxreviews.org/Linux_Kernel_5.5_Will_Not_Fix_The_F... They should be fixed by now, but basically the latest LTS kernel was broken for 3-4 months on many Intel GPUs.
- qplex 7y ago
  Me too. People fail to grasp the difference between rendering the whole system unusable and just the OS. On a PC pretty much the only thing that can brick the machine is a BIOS update.

apostacy 7y ago

The first thing I always do is disable auto-updates. Auto updating does not deserve the level of trust we put it in it. Just a few months ago, Google's creepy invisible updater rendered people's Apples unbootable if they didn't have SIP enabled, which many people including myself have good reason not to[1]. Thankfully, I had already blocked Keystone Agent with an immutable folder. This auto-updating treadmill we've been sold on is really beneficial for developers, but it causes some major problems for end-users. I have honestly lost track of the number of times I have had an update cripple a device. My iPad got ruined, my PS3 lost Linux, iTunes removed p2p music sharing in a deceptive update, Cisco gutted residential routers and forced people onto their crummy new platform[2]... I could go on and on. And this isn't even counting Android. I had a friend lose Miracast support in an Android update, minutes before he had to give a presentation. And those are all examples of updates functioning as intended, even though they are against the interests of the users. I can add more citations if anyone is curious. So no, if you use your device for anything important, then don't update it until you've made a backup, and had a chance to read up on any potential problems. It really says something that in this day and age, I've had to become much more vigilant about backing up my data than ever before. [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21064663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21064663 [2]: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/06/29/1425210/cisco-pushing-cloud-connect-router-firmware-allows-web-history-tracking https://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/06/29/1425210/cisco-pushi...

userbinator 7y ago
This auto-updating treadmill we've been sold on is really beneficial for developers, but it causes some major problems for end-users. How so? If anything, I think it's just as bad for developers, who expect a stable foundation to be able to build on.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- apostacy 7y ago
  Because forcing everything to be evergreen means that they only have to support the latest version. They can also corral users away from less common and older platforms. One thing I really don't like about it, is how it forces you to spend more money on the latest hardware you don't need. Something is broken when I can't use a three year old phone to pay a parking ticket in my city. And they can just scoff at me and say that it is my fault for daring to go two years without buying a new device. Being evergreen means that any vulnerabilities in DRM and platform integrity are swept away under a tide of updates. As long as you are constantly pushing updates, and making it very hard for people to use an out of date version, you don't have to worry nearly as much. Finally, in the bigger picture, it strategically makes sense because it keeps your competitors aiming at a moving target. Why do you think it is easier to install an older operating system than it is to install an older version of Chrome? Do you really think it is solely about your security and safety? Of course not. They don't care about end user security or privacy nearly as much as they do about keeping their platform secured. In fact, it is still easy to buy out a trusted Chrome extension and attack users. There is still no possible way to disable extension updates. Google knows about this and they won't change their architecture in any major way; they just keep the updates and revocations rolling and rolling, and any users who are hurt by this are an acceptable loss.

sneak 7y ago

Auto update is granting RCE to the vendor, as well as anyone who can compel the vendor to push updates to your device. The Apple updater system can target specific machines (not sure if it’s by serial or MAC address or what). I do not want point and click military intelligence RCE capability on my machines.

jillesvangurp 7y ago

I disable them for two reasons: 1) they take ages to complete and I want to run them on my schedule instead of being forced to take a 40-60 minute chunk out of my schedule. 2) there's always a risk of an update breaking something and if that happens, I'm OK with being a few days/weeks behind. In recent years, big OSX updates are effectively a beta release until the second service release or so. Also, they have been enormously underwhelming in the sense that I can barely tell them apart. There's generally very little in them that I need/want. I don't use any of the bundled software (mail, icloud, the office stuff, etc). All I care about is being able to run my browser (Firefox), Homebrew, some games (quite a few less as of Catalina), and development tools like vs code, intellij, docker. I actually updated my imac to the latest Catalina last weekend, and applied the fix we're discussing here a few days ago to be able to run the latest x-plane beta with a new rendering engine that uses metal (and vulkan elsewhere); it complained it needed the latest driver. Didn't break anything for me luckily. My mac book pro is not getting the supplemental upgrade until I know it's not going to ruin my day.