2008/8/1 Kevin Dupuy :

On Fri, 2008-08-01 at 11:25 +0200, Michael Roberts wrote:

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OpenSUSE 11.0 with Gnome, on amd x86_64. When I boot up the system, I see the green or orange sun at the bottom which is the online update applet. Once I have inspected and applied the updates, this icon disappears. On Suse 10.3, it would remain and I could tell it to check again.

I only see this icon again when I reboot and often immediately see new updates, which makes me think the applet stops running after the first time it updates anything.

It depends on your settings.

It will check for updates however often you ask it to in the Preferences (or Software Updates from the Control Center). Now, I don't do this, but I presume that it means that if you tell it to check hourly, the icon will return every hour to check for updates in your subscribed repositories.

By default, it checks for updates every day, so the icon comes back when it checks for updates once you turn on your computer (and obviously stays if it finds any), but if it doesn't find any updates, it will close again. (Which I think is better than the always-visible icon of yesteryear).

Hope that helps :-).

Thanks for that clear answer. I have selected hourly updates for a while, just so I can see that it really does find updates while the system is running... Many aspects of user interface design are a question of personal preference. I normally disable any functionality which decides to hide things like taskbar icons it thinks are inactive and I always rather liked to see the green "no updates pending" indication. It is a sort of Linux' Security Blanket. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

2008/8/17 Michael Roberts :

2008/8/1 Michael Roberts :

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2008/8/1 Kevin Dupuy :

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On Fri, 2008-08-01 at 11:25 +0200, Michael Roberts wrote:

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OpenSUSE 11.0 with Gnome, on amd x86_64. When I boot up the system, I see the green or orange sun at the bottom which is the online update applet. Once I have inspected and applied the updates, this icon disappears. On Suse 10.3, it would remain and I could tell it to check again.

I only see this icon again when I reboot and often immediately see new updates, which makes me think the applet stops running after the first time it updates anything.

It depends on your settings. [...]

Thanks for that clear answer. I have selected hourly updates for a while, just so I can see that it really does find updates while the system is running...

Well I have left the system running for eight days now. There is no automatic update icon showing. Checking for System Updates from the Yast Software Management shows four entries - dnsmasq, PackageKit, postfix, python, of which all except PackageKit are security updates. I'm saving a draft of this message so far and will now reboot...

Well immediately after I rebooted, I got the orange sun icon which showed that updates are present. It is listing one update, which is the Packagekit update - the one from above which does not involve security!

So firstly, I definitely think that the automatic update function is not working on my computer Secondly, there is no user feedback as to whether or not it is running. Thirdly, when it does run after a reboot it is offering optional (albeit "important") updates and omitting serious-looking security updates.

The Update System overview dialog says "Last refresh: over a week ago, last update: over a week ago". Does this confirm that the hourly inspection has not been happening, or is that something else?

I have just checked the Automatic Online Update Setup -Yast dialog in the rebooted system - and automatic updates are disabled! Despite the fact that I definitely enabled them as reported above. Does the automatic update run after a reboot even if it is disabled?

I will enable the functionality once again, to see if I can find out when it is getting disabled. How can I check whether the application is in fact running every hour? Is there a log of the results of the latest requests? Is there a web page which lists current updates and when they were made available?

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... I always rathe liked to see the green "no updates pending" indication. It is a sort of Linux' Security Blanket.

I think I need a Security Blanket!

I have just realised that the configuration I needed is hiding in the Computer -> System Control Centre (and have started a re-titled thread to address that issue.) That aspect of the update functionality is showing as enabled for every hour. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

2008/8/17 Michael S. Dunsavage

On Sun, 2008-08-17 at 02:01 +0200, Michael Roberts wrote:

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Is there a log of the results of the latest requests? Is there a web page which lists current updates and when they were made available?

Look in /var/log/zypp-refresh.log infact pipe a "grep zypp-refresh" to that command.

I manually told the little applet "check now" while tail -f zypp-refresh.log and my screen came alive, so I think that's where the log you're asking about is. well @ least that's the KDE applet, heh. But zypper is for the system so it should do the same thing.

Thanks for the reply. Hmm. I do not have zypp-refresh.log . I do have zypper.log and have left sudo tail -f /var/log/zypper.log running overnight, to see what it says tomorrow. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

2008/8/17 Kevin Dupuy :

On Sun, 2008-08-17 at 02:01 +0200, Michael Roberts wrote:

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Well immediately after I rebooted, I got the orange sun icon which showed that updates are present. It is listing one update, which is the Packagekit update - the one from above which does not involve security!

More than likely, and I'm not sure, but I do suspect that PackageKit is set to install certain updates before others, e.g. an update to fix an issue with the software management system is very likely to need to be installed separately from everything else. I know that's how it used to be when there was an update for the package management system, you had to install that first. So install it and try again.

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Thirdly, when it does run after a reboot it is offering optional (albeit "important") updates and omitting serious-looking security updates.

Same answer as above. Install it and try again.

Also keep in mind, I don't know what then frequency of installation of automatic updates are, but it could be those updates were pushed after it did it's last normal check of automatic updates. -- Kevin "Yo" Dupuy - openSUSE Member Public Mail: Meet Bob Barr - Libertarian for President - http://www.BobBarr2008.com/

Yes, the PackageKit update is done first as the updater must restart afterwards. There are clues about this in the YaST Software Management interface, but it is not really obvious to a newcomer (I will try to prepare a more coherent analysis.) The Gnome applet is clearly respecting that priority and that aspect of its functionality is OK. In the meantime I see that the log file for the Gnome applet is /var/log/pk_backend_zypp . This is currently being updated every hour as expected. I will continue to monitor this to see whether updates are detected correctly and that the applet continues to be active. -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org