muon package manager - automatic updates not happening

[kuman]

Hi, I have muon, and I went to 'Softwares sources / Updates' and set Automatic updates to 'Check for updates: Daily' and 'Download all updates in background.'

However, I still keep getting bugged daily by muon that 'updates are available'... clicking on the notification launches muon-updater, which lets me update the packages. I thought muon was supposed to do this automatically now since automatic updates are on.

What's going on here?

[vinnywright]

download updates in background ,,,,,,,,dose just that , it downloads them but dose not install them,,,,,,,you can also check "install security updates without conformation" and maby it will automatically install them (security updates) but not just general updates.

IMO it is not a good idea to have any updates installed without me seeing what is going to be done .
I turn off notifications and run off updates in the command line when I feal like it with

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

VINNY

[kuman]

Hi Vinny, thanks for the info! I guess this issue may be more complex than I originally thought. I don't fully understand how the package updating system works; I wonder if you (or anyone else) would mind answering some further questions to help me grasp it better. Perhaps it would be helpful to others as well.

First, I've heard other people say the same thing you did about seeing the packages first, but...is it really better for me to see the updates before they are installed? I've been more or less doing it that way for years; almost every day, muon says there are updates; I click on it, wait for it to load, see a list of a bunch of packages, tell it to install them, enter my password....every day, again and again. It seems like drudgery, the sort that computers should save us from, not cause us to endure. Maybe I'm wrong, perhaps it is good to see the updates before they are installed...but really, aren't I just pressing "yes, install them?" Why would I NOT want to install the updates? And what information am I getting from muon? I see the names of the packages, and if I click on them, I (sometimes) see some terse text about some security issue number XXYYZZ that's fixed now, or something to that effect. I don't really have time to research each update and understand its implications (how many hours per day would that take?), so I just say "go ahead muon, update the packages like you want." What else can I do? And how would that be different than having the updates just go on automatically? What could go wrong doing it automatically as opposed to just reflexively doing it manually?

I see that Muon seems to distinguish between 'Important security updates', 'Recommended updates', Pre-released updates', and 'Unsupported updates'. I have all except Pre-release checking in my Muon settings (I guess that's the default because I don't remember ever mucking with those settings myself). This may be a stupid question, but how can I tell which updates that I'v gotten fall into which category? Looking at the Package History, I just see a lot of various package names that have been installed but no clear way to distinguish them.

My goal is really to stop having to waste my time dealing with the updates every day, but still keep my system up to date and secure, by getting all the updates in a timely manner. Is this possibile to achieve (in a safe, sensible, stable manner)? Does anyone else do this? Is everyone just dealing with the updates manually every day and nothing can be done to make this easier?

Sorry for the long-winded questions, not sure else how to express them, and I can't find much documentation for muon. Any help/advice would be much appreciated.

[Snowhog]

I do not depend on Muon to let me know. I run sudo apt-get distupgrade daily. I have never had any problems.

[Qqmike]

For some people, it comes down to having control and a choice as to whether and when to install an update/upgrade. E.g., a kernel upgrade, many users prefer to wait a few days or longer, waiting to make sure there are no reported issues with it. Or, maybe for some reason you do not wish to yet take an update/upgrade to one of your programs; so then you can choose to hold off for awhile.

[kuman]

I do not depend on Muon to let me know. I run sudo apt-get distupgrade daily. I have never had any problems.

Is what muon does the equivilant of apt-get dist-upgrade? Or apt-get upgrade? Or something else?

[Snowhog]

From what I understand, Muon's 'updates' are "not" dist-upgrade.

[ronw]

My goal is really to stop having to waste my time dealing with the updates every day, but still keep my system up to date and secure, by getting all the updates in a timely manner. Is this possibile to achieve (in a safe, sensible, stable manner)? Does anyone else do this? Is everyone just dealing with the updates manually every day and nothing can be done to make this easier?

Updates everyday on 14.04 LTS seems strange. But if you want to automate it, with the risk that entails, create a shell script like:

#!/bin/bash
apt-get update && apt-get -y dist-upgrade

then a root cronjob to call it every day. I don't recommend this, but it would automate it. Note the complete lack of a mechanism to let you know when updates need a reboot.

I let moun notifier ping me in the system tray, but like many here, I run all my updates in a konsole window. I like to see what's happening and the rare warnings or error message.

[kuman]

From what I understand, Muon's 'updates' are "not" dist-upgrade.

Is there a way to confirm exactly what muon is doing? I mean, the equivilant in apt-get terms. I assume muon uses the apt-get as its backend.

[claydoh]

From what I understand, Muon's 'updates' are "not" dist-upgrade.

NOPE!

Muon, Synaptic all are performing the same process as sudo apt-get dist-upgrade, else nothing that involves installing new (not already installed) packages would ever be installed.

upgrade
upgrade is used to install the newest versions of all packages
currently installed on the system from the sources enumerated in
/etc/apt/sources.list. Packages currently installed with new
versions available are retrieved and upgraded; under no
circumstances are currently installed packages removed, or packages
not already installed retrieved and installed. New versions of
currently installed packages that cannot be upgraded without
changing the install status of another package will be left at
their current version. An update must be performed first so that
apt-get knows that new versions of packages are available.

dist-upgrade
dist-upgrade in addition to performing the function of upgrade,
also intelligently handles changing dependencies with new versions
of packages; apt-get has a "smart" conflict resolution system, and
it will attempt to upgrade the most important packages at the
expense of less important ones if necessary. So, dist-upgrade
command may remove some packages. The /etc/apt/sources.list file
contains a list of locations from which to retrieve desired package
files. See also apt_preferences(5) for a mechanism for overriding
the general settings for individual packages.

What I suggest doing, as even though the settings in the Software Sources may be set up correctly for updates, the Muon Update Manager may have lost it's settings. From the Kmenu, search for muon, and select Muon Update Manager to open it. Look at the settings or options (iirc in the "More.." button and make sure that the options to notify of updates is enabled.

Also, check your system tray settings and check to see if there is an entry for Updates or similar in the General section, possibly under Extra Items. I don't have a 14.04 box, so I can't tell for sure, but I have seen these options get changed for some reason, I think during an update to Muon or its Qapt backend.

[kuman]

NOPE!

Muon, Synaptic all are performing the same process as sudo apt-get dist-upgrade, else nothing that involves installing new (not already installed) packages would ever be installed.

Hi claydoh--not saying that you're wrong, but that reasoning doesn't make sense to me. The issue is what muon-updater is running during its periodic automatic updates. It could be apt-get upgrade, or apt-get dist-upgrade, or possibly something else entirely. None of these would preclude muon from installing new packages when called upon to do so by other means (e.g. presumably when you run an action to install new packages via muon-installer or muon [Muon Package Manager], it may run apt-get install [that-package]). Right?

It would certainly be helpful if there were some documentation of muon. It would be helpful to know (exactly) what it was doing for the routine updates. I have not been able to locate any such documentation.

What I suggest doing, as even though the settings in the Software Sources may be set up correctly for updates, the Muon Update Manager may have lost it's settings. From the Kmenu, search for muon, and select Muon Update Manager to open it. Look at the settings or options (iirc in the "More.." button and make sure that the options to notify of updates is enabled.

Also, check your system tray settings and check to see if there is an entry for Updates or similar in the General section, possibly under Extra Items. I don't have a 14.04 box, so I can't tell for sure, but I have seen these options get changed for some reason, I think during an update to Muon or its Qapt backend.

I checked this as you suggested, and the option "Show notifications for available updates" is checked in muon-updater's preferences. This seems correct to me, unless I am not understanding you correctly.

The notifications have never been the problem though. I don't have trouble getting notified about new packages; my issue is I want the package management system to handle routine updates without my intervention so I don't have to waste my time constantly and repetitively clicking on the notification button, wating for muon to start, clicking 'update', entering my password, etc.

Ronw--thanks for your suggestion. Yes, I am running 14.04 and if I read the /var/log/apt/history logs correctly, it looks like muon has run updates 26 times over the past 36 days, so a little less than every day, but a lot. I have some extra packages installed beyond the base ones; about 3400 total.

I appreciate your suggestion but am not fully satisfied with it as a solution to my issue. As you put it, it sounds a bit risky. I'm ideally looking for a more sound, proven method of keeping the packages updated, safely, with minimal intervention on my part. Is running apt-get dist-upgrade in the cron up to that standard? Is that what most people (or many people) have been doing successfully, for a sustained period of time?

Perhaps there is no better solution. I understand that many people are satisfied either running muon or running apt-get dist-upgrade manually on a frequent basis. I understand that many people may feel that want to "keep an eye" on the package manager running routine updates. I guess I feel differently--it seems to me that in 2015 my computer should be able to do routine software updates by itself without my intervention, except in unusual cases (my phone works that way, after all).

In fact, the updates themselves seem to run smoothly 99% of the time...it just seems to me a complete waste of time to be constantly hitting "yes, update", entering my password AGAIN, waiting, and so on, day after day. Why can't the package manager do the updates, and only notify me if I need to do something? Why can't it just roll back what it did if it detects some sort of error (and let me know in that case)?

Am I really the only one who feels this way? Are all the other kubuntu users happy to be repeatedly doing this repetitive task again and again? Or am I missing some common solution that many people are doing?

[dequire]

Why are we having this conversation? I mean...there's been a lot of threads on here about Muon. If it doesn't work why do we tell people to use it?? Every thread that comes here is the same ****...Don't use the tool that you're provided with...Use the terminal instead. Not exactly winning people over. Geeks? Yea maybe. But no-one else. We're doing a dis-service...even if it's the right thing in the short-term. The answer is to fix the problem.

[claydoh]

Apologies, I mis-read the OP.

I had thought that the updater was not working correctly, but it actually is, and you want it to do something different.

Not that it is important, but it does seem a little out of the ordinary to have nearly daily sets of packages to update in 14.04. I might assume that you have some ppa action going on which might cause this. What would concern me about fully unattended upgrades is the possibility that something goes astray (much more likely in some random ppa) that causes something important to be uninstalled due a misconfigured dependency setting in a package.

However, I think we missed looking in some obvious places for ideas on how to do this.....


https://help.ubuntu.com/lts/servergu...c-updates.html

Make the file specified look like this (this may look different in 14.04):

// Automatically upgrade packages from these (origin:archive) pairs
Unattended-Upgrade::Allowed-Origins {
	"${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-security";
	"${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-updates";
//	"${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-proposed";
//	"${distro_id}:${distro_codename}-backports";
};

Just remove the "//" at the beginning of the line.
If you have the trusty-backports ("Unsupported Updates") enabled (it may be by default), you will want to uncomment the -backports line.

[jlittle]

I'd just add that the new apt command is slightly nicer than apt-get. The output is more colourful, and
sudo apt update
gives a message at the end if packages can be upgraded, f.ex.
7 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.
One then follows with sudo apt full-upgrade, a less confusing command than apt-get's dist-upgrade.

[ronw]

I guess I feel differently--it seems to me that in 2015 my computer should be able to do routine software updates by itself without my intervention, except in unusual cases (my phone works that way, after all).

Your phone comment is apt. What you describe sounds like a Chromebook. And I'm not trolling. Like their phones, many people want their computer (which is to them a device that runs a browser) to take care of itself. Well, many people *need* a device that takes care of itself. By definition this isn't you since you are running Linux and are on KFN.

My guess is that developing an automated update system like you describe, but where the user still has the ability to futz with /etc and other stuff outside of /home, would be a difficult, thankless, painful, never-ending task.