Preparing upgrade for 13.10

[Harald Sitter]

ahoy,

On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 2:58 AM, Àlex Fiestas <afiestas at kde.org> wrote:

> Hi there
>
> A few weeks (months?) back I upgraded my parents system to 13.04, they
> were quite scared of doing it themselves so they asked me to do it (which
> is weird since they have done the process already).
>
> So I found this on the systemtray:
> http://wstaw.org/m/2013/06/17/instant%C3%A1nea5_png_750x750_q85.jpg
>
> First I clicked on the bulb since it is the most different icon. I tasked
> me to "Run this action". I did. A terminal opened with some text that since
> I was distracted I was not able to see. Once it finished the bulb appeared
> again in what seemed to be an infinite loop of "Run this action", "Terminal
> Opens", "Bulb appears again".
>

this issue is really really really weird. so the bulb essentially represent
an ubuntu feature called package hooks. it allows a package to let the user
execute a command after installation/upgrade. this is to move time
consuming or complex configuration out of the installation.
most prominent example is apt-file, which requires a file cache of all
packages available through apt, creating that cache takes ages and requires
an active internet connection so someone moved it into a hook. this allows
the user to create/update the cache after installation when he does not
intend to use the system and has internet available.

a hook needs to explicitly declare that it wants a terminal to be shown
making it very much a packagers' choice. you could have a gui application
'myconfig' run via the hook as well, allowing the user to do indepth
configuration of mysql or something without ever showing a terminal.

all that said, the only reason you'd get this behavior is by having a very
weird package installed (i.e. there are very few archive packages using
this and really only apt-file comes to mind) or the notifier kded module
is/was bugged.

you could take a look at /var/lib/update-notifier/user.d/ to see what files
linger there.


> Then I clicked the white update icon I think, muon-updater was executed I
> selected all packages when it was suggested that a new version was
> available but I decided to upgrade the current version first. The process
> failed because it was unable to download some packages.
>

I am not sure whether that was fixed meanwhile... Jonathan? I have been
complaining about this for years :P
What happens is that apt-get update is run -> notifier is shown -> user
waits 3000 days -> clicks notifier -> tries to install -> 404 parade
(though I have to admit this only happens with PPAs, the official archive
does not remove packages). Easy as hell to resolve by simply forcing a
cache update before starting the actual package installations.

this really should not ever happen. in fact, updates should not ever fail
for no reason what so ever, not even if the internet connection is lost the
flipping update should fail but be put on hold or something. I know, I am
day dreaming again... :(


> Then I clicked the other button, the dialog that appeared was not fully
> translated to Spanish (this would be important to my parents).
>

was it this here thingy?
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8T_jRbxYK90/T3w0m25UgtI/AAAAAAAADv8/drL2O9WLjqs/s1600/3.png

I do admit that I have not ever looked at upgrade l10n as that is supposed
to be shared with the gnome tool, so it should work(tm) -.-


> Once the upgraded finished and I rebooted the computer, I found again two
> icons on the systemtray, this time only the colored upgrade and the bulb.
>
> I clicked the bulb, then "Run this action", then a terminal opened, and
> the bulb was finally gone.
>
> I clicked on the colored icon, muon-updated appeared, upgraded some
> packages and offered me restart.
>

this is curious. Jonathan, isn't muon-updater supposed to be the monochrome
icon? :O


> How can we improve this? what is this bulb doing? can it stop showing a
> terminal?
>
> Can we only show one icon instead of 2 for upgrade?
>

my best guess for this is that one was the dist-upgrade and one was the
muon-upgrader for regular packages. Jonathan would know. supposedly it
should be still be the same notifier though (perhaps simply use a different
icon if a dist-upgrade is available?). upon clicking it muon-updater comes
up and presents both options.


> Why did I have to upgrade just after upgrading? I had bad luck or is it
> normal?
>

bad luck most likely. though some time ago we discussed the possibility of
phasing non-security updates - such that updates only get offered every 7
days by default - it would prevent this type of experience fail.


I really think we eventually should sit down and fix the
update/upgrade/dist-upgrade experience there are many of these minor issues
that at least to me pretty much wreck the experience (not that anyone likes
doing upgrades anyway, but at least we should make them less awkward ;)).

HS
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