this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
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[–] itsraining 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

That would be true if:

  1. A GUI software center is used (or if the said dad is comfortable with an interactive console application)
  2. The said dad actually realizes the importance behind updates. From my experience, many people don't.

So, unless both of above are true, the dad will never (want to) update his system because "it works as is", sticking to old versions of software, never receiving bugfixes and neglecting security.

[–] Zeth0s 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Most distro nowadays come with a gui to update. A pop up window appears asking if you want to update/upgrade. You can press "yes" and the password of the sudoer or admin user is asked. It has been like this for over a decade. For popular distros as Ubuntu or fedora over 15 years

Is it different for your distro?

[–] pete_the_cat 2 points 1 year ago

He still doesn't care to.

[–] itsraining 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, probably because I stick with Arch and Slackware plus a lightweight environment. The only time I saw such a GUI was when I tried out Elementary just for fun.

What I consider a problem is that the user can simply dismiss or disregard the updates notification indefinitely. I know many non-tech-savvy people who do not understand the importance of updates, so they would be inclined to do exactly that. That is why unattended upgrades are probably a better option in such cases.

[–] Zeth0s 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The process is so simple that there is no reason to not do it. My wife is non-tech person, I installed ubuntu on her laptop and she's very happy because it's faster than windows. I have never updated it for her. She does it. Only thing I have done is the upgrade to a new ubuntu release

[–] pete_the_cat 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You're a wise (wo)man. That is exactly the case. I've shown him how to do it in the GUI but he doesn't care to because, like you said, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".

[–] itsraining 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thank you for answering. I can relate to manually updating my parents' systems once in a while but at this point I'm seriously considering unattended upgrades (updating over SSH is also a good idea).

[–] pete_the_cat 1 points 1 year ago

NP, I don't consider it a big issue, I kick it off whenever I'm there and it takes about 10 minutes.