[Bug 1073727] Re: Software Updater does not respect user's "Automatically check for updates" setting

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

I don't follow the "respect the user's choice" logic. If someone
launches Software Updater, 99% of the time it's because they want to
install updates, which entails having an up-to-date list of updates. So
checking automatically is just doing the obvious thing, and it's
reasonable for that to be opt-out (using the "Stop" button) rather than
opt-in (using a "Check For Updates"" button).

But if we can define a case where we know the automatic check isn't
necessary, then sure, we shouldn't do the check. Perhaps something like,
if the package lists have been updated in the past 24 hours AND more
recently than the most recent change to the sources lists?

I've added your idea about listing packages updated since the last check
time to <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoftwareUpdates#Ideas>.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1073727

Title:
  Software Updater does not respect user's "Automatically check for
  updates" setting

Status in “update-manager” package in Ubuntu:
  New

Bug description:
  I'm using Lubuntu 12.10, installed in a VirtualBox VM.

  Software Updater checks for updates whenever it is run. There doesn't
  seem to be any way to prevent that, short of manually interrupting the
  check every time. Even if the user clicks Settings... and sets
  "Automatically check for updates" to Never, Software Updater always
  checks for updates.

  This can cause a lot of unnecessary network activity. Apart from
  wasting time when there is no need to check for updates, imagine the
  impact on the user experience for users with dialup or pay-by-the-
  megabyte 3G connections.

  This could be improved in a couple of ways:
   1. Respect the user's choice and don't automatically check for updates every time Software Updater is run.
   2. If updates were last checked for recently (within 24 hours say), there's no need for Software Updater to re-download all the package lists. Examples:
     - The user used Software Updater to install security updates, and later runs it again to install some proposed updates.
     - The user used Synaptic to add a repository, reloaded the package lists and installed a package from the new repository. User later runs Software Updater. 

  (Ideally the whole package/update system would be improved so Software
  Updater could request from the server a list of those changed packages
  since the last check time. That would make a typical update checking
  session much faster. But I guess that's out of scope for this bug.)

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