Making Update Manager less obtrusive

[Scott Kitterman]

On Wed, 25 Mar 2009 10:06:43 -0400 "Jamin W. Collins" 
<jcollins at asgardsrealm.net> wrote:
>I apologize for coming into this discussion rather late.  However, I've 
>only just become aware of this rather radical change in expected 
>behavior.  Having used Ubuntu since 6.10 on my laptops I've grown rather 
>accustom to the update-notifier.  As Steve stated in a previous message:
>
>On Friday 20 February 2009 5:13:36 pm Steve Langasek wrote:
> > I recognize that I'm going to be a hard sell here, because I was
> > madly in love with the earlier update-notifier behavior from the first
> > moment I saw it.
>
>Part of what I valued in update-notifier was its ability to inform me 
>that there were updates my system was aware of in a timely manner, 
>regardless of whether they were security updates, bug fixes, or 
>something else.  And that it managed to do so in a very unobtrusive 
>manner.  From what I've gathered about its replacement neither of these 
>are the case.  The notifications are no longer timely (delayed by days) 
>and aren't/won't be as unobtrusive (window nagging for interaction).
>
>On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 8:00 AM, Matthew Paul Thomas wrote:
> > *  As well as staying closed for a week (excepting security updates)
> >    after it has been open for any reason, Update Manager will also
> >    stay closed for a week if you have installed updates by any method,
> >    including apt-get or aptitude. <http://launchpad.net/bugs/334952>
>
>For security updates, rather than being notified as soon as my system is 
>aware of them, it could take up to two days from the time my system is 
>aware of them for me to be notified.  So, if my system is set to update 
>its package list daily, we are looking at a potential window of nearly 
>72 hours from security fix being published to me being notified, 
>assuming that the security update hits the repository just after my last 
>package update.  Roughly 24 hours until the system checks the repository 
>again, then potentially another 48 hours until it notifies me.  I find 
>that delay unacceptable.
>
>The situation becomes far worse when looking at non-security updates. 
>Reasons for bug fixes vary greatly.  However, one presumable case is to 
>fix potential data loss.  With the new scheme we are now looking at a 
>window of nearly 192 hours during which a fix could be available and 
>known to the user's system.
>
>If my system is aware of updates (security or otherwise) I would like 
>timely notification of them.  At minimum, less than 8 hours from when it 
>became aware of them, but I'd prefer notification to be immediate as it 
>was before.
>
>I'm not the only user that would like to see some (presumably timely) 
>notification that the system has knowledge of updates:
>
>On Fri Feb 27 21:28:38 GMT 2009, Jordan Mantha wrote:
> > Is there going to be *any* indicator that says "you have updates"
> > without actually launching a program? I just ran into a little
> > confusion as I popped open Synaptic to install something and was faced
> > with 139 updates (I'm running Jaunty of course). So my computer knew I
> > had updates but it failed to tell me about them, I find that a tad
> > frustrating.
>
>I really don't understand the rationality of moving to a less timely and 
>more obtrusive methodology.
>
>Please correct me, or enlighten me, if I'm wrong.
>

Fortunately you can get the icon back.  See:

http://amber.redvoodoo.org/2009/03/ubuntu-chronicles-saga-of-amber-and_23.html

Scott K