8 ms·

Snap is awful, no arguments there. I think the more important thing here is that the very idea that something should update itself is so incredibly insanely bro

Snap is awful, no arguments there. I think the more important thing here is that the very idea that something should update itself is so incredibly insanely broken and I cannot for the life of me understand why it's the norm. The number of times I've been hacked and suffered a data loss is astronomically small compared to the number of times I've had something update and suffered a data loss, or more importantly the number of times I've had something update and cause a regression or break something. Then I have to spend my precious time bringing something that was PREVIOUSLY IN A WORKING STATE back to a working state, which is one of the most infuriating feelings.

bombolo 4y ago
Doesn't apt also update itself?
- f1refly 4y ago
  Apt updates itself if you instruct it to, the updates also won't restart anything by themselves. I don't think unattended upgrades are enabled on debian or on ubuntu.
  - bombolo 4y ago
    I think they might be in ubuntu server installations. I think they aren't enabled by default on debian… at least not on my installs.
    - f1refly 4y ago
      I have a bunch of ubuntu containers at work, none of them self update by default, I know that because I had to enable unattended upgrades manually in all of them. Maybe it's a lxc template thing?
      - bombolo 4y ago
        If you got them from dockerhub or similar… that's not a default ubuntu install.
  - bragr 4y ago
    >also won't restart anything by themselves Is it very not true? Apt restarts processes and services all the time during upgrades.
    - tssva 4y ago
      Apt always prompts me as to which services I want to restart following an upgrade.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - pmontra 4y ago
    When Firefox is updated by apt on 20.04, it keeps working until I open a new tab. Then it shows a page asking me to restart the browser and won't do anything else until I comply. This is a choice of Mozilla. When Ubuntu prompts me to restart the system after an update I can dismiss the dialog even for weeks, but at a certain point the cumulative updates start making the system behave erratically and I have to restart. Probably kernel, drivers, libc, other vital stuff get too much disaligned.
    - ElectricalUnion 4y ago
      > When Firefox is updated by apt on 20.04, it keeps working until I open a new tab. Then it shows a page asking me to restart the browser and won't do anything else until I comply. This is a choice of Mozilla. Parts of the program were updated and now the program is in a not tested, half-updated, half-old state. The "other choice" for Mozilla is pretending nothing happened, attempt to open the tab, probably immediatly segfaulting and losing all your current work in a potentially unrecoverable way. Not really a good choice under most circunstances.
      - pmontra 4y ago
        It started doing that only a few months ago. Apparently it worked in the half updated state before then but of course the implementation and the update process could have changed.
  - mmis1000 4y ago
    > I don't think unattended upgrades are enabled on debian or on ubuntu. I don't think it's true, I had the disable unintended upgrade on Ubuntu because it runs cpu at 100% and make very big noise at night.
charcircuit 4y ago
>I cannot for the life of me understand why it's the norm. If updates were not automatic a large number of people would not upgrade and would not receive important security updates along with various fixes and new features. If a user keeps running into a bug that has already been patched in a newer version that user will just think your software is bad and they will not realize that this poor experience they are having is because they are on an old version. >The number of times I've been hacked and suffered a data loss is astronomically small Being hacked even once is a bad thing. It is something that the industry tries to minimize as much as possible. >the number of times I've had something update and suffered a data loss Personally I have not experienced this, but it sounds like this would still happen when you update later. This is why doing gradual updates of rollouts and collecting telemetry is important. It is very useful in being able to detect a bad update and stop it from going out. Unfortunately, the Linux ecosystem is still behind the rest of the industry which leads to people having a poor user experience.
- tttttt5ts 4y ago
  Is this response generated by ChatGPT? Seriously, we are talking Linux here and this is a generic response that ignores audience.
  - omg_ponies 4y ago
    OP posted a since-the-dawn-of-time complaint about automatic updates that ignores why they are necessary, and clearly states that he's just refusing to engage with the usual reasons for them. The "generic" response is beacuse the complaint is simiarly generic.
    - thot_experiment 4y ago
      Sorry, I'm not sure I'm parsing this right, you're saying "security updates are necessary and I as a user am going to have worse outcomes for not updating my stuff"? My personal experience does not match this at all, so is the explanation there that I'm just lucky?
jrm4 4y ago
100%. Ubuntu doesn't seem to realize (or simply doesn't care that) enterprise servers and user desktops are entirely different beasts.
bobmaxup 4y ago
snap keeps the last three revisions, doesn't it?
- lmm 4y ago
  Maybe. Good luck figuring out what the method to run them is this week.
abdullahkhalids 4y ago
Firefox on the release channel downloads updates automatically. And it applies the updates when you next restart the browser. This does not interrupt your browsing in any way. Which I think is fair decision for a browser with a large attack surface. Most other software should only update when specifically instructed to.
- aliraheem 4y ago
  The biggest problem is that Firefox updates the next time you open the app, without warning. That's not a sane decision. Sane would be to update on closing. Same way Windows offers to "Update and Shutdown" (you don't need the PC anymore why don't I under after you walk away) and not "Update on next Start up" (I'll wait until you need me to get in your way).
  - yellowapple 4y ago
    > Same way Windows offers to "Update and Shutdown" (you don't need the PC anymore why don't I under after you walk away) and not "Update on next Start up" (I'll wait until you need me to get in your way). This presumes that shutting down is never a time-sensitive action. If I had a nickel for every time Windows decided it wants to spend a half hour installing updates when I'm trying to shut down a laptop so that I can put it in my bag and go somewhere with it, I'd be able to actually buy a Windows license instead of resorting to vlmcsd.
    - Throwawayaerlei 4y ago
      I run a desktop workstation with a UPS, its lead acid batteries are not infinite and don't like staying discharged, so at times shutting down quickly and cleanly is very important. The more I hear, the happier I am that I moved to Linux a decade and a half ago, and this general topic is a major reason I'm planning to go back to Debian after using Ubuntu LTS for my last two versions.
      - vel0city 4y ago
forrestthewoods 4y ago
> I think the more important thing here is that the very idea that something should update itself is so incredibly insanely broken and I cannot for the life of me understand why it's the norm. Eek hard disagree. Most things I want to auto-update. Preferably at 4am. Somethings I want to disable auto-update. What I never want is things to update when I’m in the middle of something.
- antiframe 4y ago
  It sounds like you want to control a policy of when things should update. For example Firefox every 4am, Kernel when you say so, Python 2.6 never, etc. I understand "something should update itself" to mean that the user doesn't get to set the policy, it does.
- ezfe 4y ago
  macOS never interrupts the user, for example. Even if you click the install button, if you (X) out of the "restarting" notification it won't restart/install the update.
ezfe 4y ago
This is a big reason why macOS snapshots your disk before an update. If you ever have a problem, reboot to recovery mode and you'll see a "Restore backup" entry from just before your update that will instantly revert the system to the previous version.
worik 4y ago
> the very idea that something should update itself is so incredibly insanely broken and I cannot for the life of me understand why it's the norm. Yes. For user orientated interactive systems it is mad. But it has its uses, IMO, for IoT devices. It was the reason I do not use Ubuntu on my personal computer. If I were in the business of building connected devices I would be interested.
wodenokoto 4y ago
Because everything is connected to the internet and what was once working is now a security liability not just to your machine but to other connected machines.

bombolo 4y ago

Doesn't apt also update itself?

f1refly 4y ago
Apt updates itself if you instruct it to, the updates also won't restart anything by themselves. I don't think unattended upgrades are enabled on debian or on ubuntu.
- bombolo 4y ago
  I think they might be in ubuntu server installations. I think they aren't enabled by default on debian… at least not on my installs.
  - f1refly 4y ago
    I have a bunch of ubuntu containers at work, none of them self update by default, I know that because I had to enable unattended upgrades manually in all of them. Maybe it's a lxc template thing?
    - bombolo 4y ago
      If you got them from dockerhub or similar… that's not a default ubuntu install.
- bragr 4y ago
  >also won't restart anything by themselves Is it very not true? Apt restarts processes and services all the time during upgrades.
  - tssva 4y ago
    Apt always prompts me as to which services I want to restart following an upgrade.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- pmontra 4y ago
  When Firefox is updated by apt on 20.04, it keeps working until I open a new tab. Then it shows a page asking me to restart the browser and won't do anything else until I comply. This is a choice of Mozilla. When Ubuntu prompts me to restart the system after an update I can dismiss the dialog even for weeks, but at a certain point the cumulative updates start making the system behave erratically and I have to restart. Probably kernel, drivers, libc, other vital stuff get too much disaligned.
  - ElectricalUnion 4y ago
    > When Firefox is updated by apt on 20.04, it keeps working until I open a new tab. Then it shows a page asking me to restart the browser and won't do anything else until I comply. This is a choice of Mozilla. Parts of the program were updated and now the program is in a not tested, half-updated, half-old state. The "other choice" for Mozilla is pretending nothing happened, attempt to open the tab, probably immediatly segfaulting and losing all your current work in a potentially unrecoverable way. Not really a good choice under most circunstances.
    - pmontra 4y ago
      It started doing that only a few months ago. Apparently it worked in the half updated state before then but of course the implementation and the update process could have changed.
- mmis1000 4y ago
  > I don't think unattended upgrades are enabled on debian or on ubuntu. I don't think it's true, I had the disable unintended upgrade on Ubuntu because it runs cpu at 100% and make very big noise at night.

charcircuit 4y ago

>I cannot for the life of me understand why it's the norm. If updates were not automatic a large number of people would not upgrade and would not receive important security updates along with various fixes and new features. If a user keeps running into a bug that has already been patched in a newer version that user will just think your software is bad and they will not realize that this poor experience they are having is because they are on an old version. >The number of times I've been hacked and suffered a data loss is astronomically small Being hacked even once is a bad thing. It is something that the industry tries to minimize as much as possible. >the number of times I've had something update and suffered a data loss Personally I have not experienced this, but it sounds like this would still happen when you update later. This is why doing gradual updates of rollouts and collecting telemetry is important. It is very useful in being able to detect a bad update and stop it from going out. Unfortunately, the Linux ecosystem is still behind the rest of the industry which leads to people having a poor user experience.

tttttt5ts 4y ago
Is this response generated by ChatGPT? Seriously, we are talking Linux here and this is a generic response that ignores audience.
- omg_ponies 4y ago
  OP posted a since-the-dawn-of-time complaint about automatic updates that ignores why they are necessary, and clearly states that he's just refusing to engage with the usual reasons for them. The "generic" response is beacuse the complaint is simiarly generic.
  - thot_experiment 4y ago
    Sorry, I'm not sure I'm parsing this right, you're saying "security updates are necessary and I as a user am going to have worse outcomes for not updating my stuff"? My personal experience does not match this at all, so is the explanation there that I'm just lucky?

jrm4 4y ago

100%. Ubuntu doesn't seem to realize (or simply doesn't care that) enterprise servers and user desktops are entirely different beasts.

bobmaxup 4y ago

snap keeps the last three revisions, doesn't it?

lmm 4y ago
Maybe. Good luck figuring out what the method to run them is this week.

abdullahkhalids 4y ago

Firefox on the release channel downloads updates automatically. And it applies the updates when you next restart the browser. This does not interrupt your browsing in any way. Which I think is fair decision for a browser with a large attack surface. Most other software should only update when specifically instructed to.

aliraheem 4y ago
The biggest problem is that Firefox updates the next time you open the app, without warning. That's not a sane decision. Sane would be to update on closing. Same way Windows offers to "Update and Shutdown" (you don't need the PC anymore why don't I under after you walk away) and not "Update on next Start up" (I'll wait until you need me to get in your way).
- yellowapple 4y ago
  > Same way Windows offers to "Update and Shutdown" (you don't need the PC anymore why don't I under after you walk away) and not "Update on next Start up" (I'll wait until you need me to get in your way). This presumes that shutting down is never a time-sensitive action. If I had a nickel for every time Windows decided it wants to spend a half hour installing updates when I'm trying to shut down a laptop so that I can put it in my bag and go somewhere with it, I'd be able to actually buy a Windows license instead of resorting to vlmcsd.
  - Throwawayaerlei 4y ago
    I run a desktop workstation with a UPS, its lead acid batteries are not infinite and don't like staying discharged, so at times shutting down quickly and cleanly is very important. The more I hear, the happier I am that I moved to Linux a decade and a half ago, and this general topic is a major reason I'm planning to go back to Debian after using Ubuntu LTS for my last two versions.
    - vel0city 4y ago

forrestthewoods 4y ago

> I think the more important thing here is that the very idea that something should update itself is so incredibly insanely broken and I cannot for the life of me understand why it's the norm. Eek hard disagree. Most things I want to auto-update. Preferably at 4am. Somethings I want to disable auto-update. What I never want is things to update when I’m in the middle of something.

antiframe 4y ago
It sounds like you want to control a policy of when things should update. For example Firefox every 4am, Kernel when you say so, Python 2.6 never, etc. I understand "something should update itself" to mean that the user doesn't get to set the policy, it does.
ezfe 4y ago
macOS never interrupts the user, for example. Even if you click the install button, if you (X) out of the "restarting" notification it won't restart/install the update.

ezfe 4y ago

This is a big reason why macOS snapshots your disk before an update. If you ever have a problem, reboot to recovery mode and you'll see a "Restore backup" entry from just before your update that will instantly revert the system to the previous version.

worik 4y ago

> the very idea that something should update itself is so incredibly insanely broken and I cannot for the life of me understand why it's the norm. Yes. For user orientated interactive systems it is mad. But it has its uses, IMO, for IoT devices. It was the reason I do not use Ubuntu on my personal computer. If I were in the business of building connected devices I would be interested.

wodenokoto 4y ago

Because everything is connected to the internet and what was once working is now a security liability not just to your machine but to other connected machines.