Hi,

I just installed Debian Trixie on a laptop using the daily Debian
installer netboot image and selected the default desktop, Gnome. On that
installation, packagekit is installed and
packagekit-offline-update.service is enabled by default. As a result,
when booting the machine, I sometimes have to wait several dozen minutes
before I can start using my computer. I see no indication that this
operation can be skipped or canceled, so I have to sit and wait until
it is done.

Is this the kind of behaviour that we want to have in the default
installation of Debian Trixie? I used to use unattended-upgrades which
managed to keep my system updated in the background. Should that kind of
upgrade experience not rather be the default? I remember having seen
Gnome installations that inform the user of available updates while the
system is running and allow the user to perform the upgrade without
rebooting. But I'm not familiar enough with Gnome to be able to tell
what component that was. But it was certainly a much nicer user
experience than having to sit and wait though an upgrade when all i want
to do is use my computer *now*.

If you are not going to change the default, what is the recommended
alternative? I can mask packagekit-offline-update.service but then what
would be the recommended way to keep a Gnome installation up-to-date?

Thanks!

cheers, josch

Version 1.2.6 is from Debian Stable. So, I guess you're reporting it from
Debian Stable and not Trixie.

Offline updates is the recommended way to update the system. Refer
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Features/OfflineSystemUpdates. In short. we
don't want to end up in a broken system (crash in the middle of upgrade
etc), which is much harder to fix.

During shutdown / restart, there is a checkbox in the dialog. which can be
disabled to avoid offline updates. In which case, one can do "apt update"
and "apt upgrade" to upgrade the system.