The dangers of automatic updates

[wolfden]

equo world, equo upgrade ---- I'm just in the habit of using world and prefer world, also feel world keeps us unique. Whatever works as long as it works I guess.

The mentality hasn't changed since this post was made. We still have people showing up in IRC without a clue on how to use the package manager, but are hollering how to update their system. They haven't even used the system for a day, but "need" everything updated.

It's just not the packages, it's the config files too. Either they are not updating them period or -5 everything, than wonder why on reboot they don't have a desktop. Curse a few words and reinstall, just to do it all over again. I wish I had a dollar for every time someone does a reinstall cause of an update. People really need to be aware of what is changing and why. Now they argue back that they don't want to know all that stuff, but it is necessary to have an idea. This works with everything you touch in life.

This just doesn't apply to linux either. Last week I was in a hurry finishing up a Vista update from microsoft and upon reboot, I got the black screen of death. All I could do was watch myself move the mouse cursor around on the black screen. I did some reading on the internet and saw it effected a lot of people and they were simply reinstalling their Operating System. I went in via command line and tried various stuff, but still no go. I went into the system recovery options and did a roll back of the system using the earlier check points and it booted fine. That update cost me a couple hours of looking around and trying various things to finally get it back working. I'm sure MAC users are in the same boat with updates.

It's when we don't pay attention is when it comes up and bites us hard.

[albfneto]

Wolfden, i see in this two things...
in fact, users of any distro adquired the "habit, daily manner to works" of their distro.... in fact, Debian, classic Debian, use
old pacakages! Debian users are conservative.... Even more conservative are Slackware users....
On the other hand, Gentoo and Gentoo based distros offer the possibility to choose, to use, newest unstable ou stable packages...
some people ask me if sabayon is stable...
Sabayon is CUSTOMIZABLE! Sabayon may be stable as rock... or unstable... as melted butter! According to that user made...
i'm according with you, even when the user of sabyon cannot use good the installers....the user want the newest openRC o Python! even when it is problematic... But this is a Philosophy, is a manner, in the peoploethat prefers beeding edge distros....
Gentoo also! Gentoo may use stable packages, or may... cause problem to the user everyday!...
A conseil tothe users... if you want USE you linux, for the video, for the net,for the music... dont UPDATE ALL ALL DAYS..
on the other hand, if you want test packages,test sabayon,,, UPDATE ALL... is not without problems... sometimes is eve too difficult... you WORK on comp, for solve the problem,not for use the comp...! even hours or days!

[jhonnymarsh]

The truth is, except for security updates and fixes for specific problems, the average desktop user is likely to have fewer difficulties with an "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy.