package: base x-debbugs-cc: debian-devel@lists.debian.org Yesterday I was helping a friend who's computer since some time didn't receive updates anymore, the reason was easily found, it was running wheezy :) That friend had no idea that the release they were running was not supported anymore and I wonder if we do have a mechanism to signal that to users. (In a more friendly way than 404 http error codes.) The friend in question is running gnome, so I'm thinking about the gnome update tool to convey this message, not apt directly. (I also don't think that subscribing to any mailing list or other news info system is the right answer to the problem observed.) Maybe this problem also has been fixed in the meantime? The upgrade from wheezy to jessie to stretch was very smooth btw, kudos & yay. (It just took 4h due to a slow harddrive involved.) Upgrades to buster and bullseye will be done when the latter is released, giving this computer a lifespan of more than 10 years with very little extra maintenance work required in those years. Debian is a very nice and stable OS indeed. Kudos once more.
I seem to remember that Ubuntu might have a solution for this and I found these resources: There is something called ubuntu-support-status from the update-manager package, but it seems to be a command-line tool: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EOL#Related Ubuntu's hardware support backports have EOL notifications that seem to be part of the update-notifier package: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HweStackEolNotifications I also found that Fedora have upgrade notifications and an upgrade process in GNOME Software: https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/quick-docs/upgrading/
Another possibility would be to use Ubuntu's dynamic motd support. This may not be appropriate for Debian but could be used to share news like new releases, ending support for old releases, etc. It might help cover a segment of users that wouldn't necessarily notice gui update notifications. https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/tools-pam-motd/11905 https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-motd http://manpages.ubuntu.com/manpages/focal/en/man8/update-motd.8.html $ apt-file search /etc/update-motd.d base-files: /etc/update-motd.d/00-header base-files: /etc/update-motd.d/10-help-text base-files: /etc/update-motd.d/50-motd-news fortunes-ubuntu-server: /etc/update-motd.d/60-ubuntu-server-tip freedombox: /etc/update-motd.d/50-freedombox fwupd: /etc/update-motd.d/85-fwupd mythtv-status: /etc/update-motd.d/50-mythtv-status overlayroot: /etc/update-motd.d/97-overlayroot ubuntu-advantage-tools: /etc/update-motd.d/88-esm-announce ubuntu-advantage-tools: /etc/update-motd.d/91-contract-ua-esm-status ubuntu-release-upgrader-core: /etc/update-motd.d/91-release-upgrade unattended-upgrades: /etc/update-motd.d/92-unattended-upgrades update-notifier-common: /etc/update-motd.d/90-updates-available update-notifier-common: /etc/update-motd.d/95-hwe-eol update-notifier-common: /etc/update-motd.d/98-fsck-at-reboot update-notifier-common: /etc/update-motd.d/98-reboot-required Thanks
Hi, This may not address very old releases but for the future releases, your concern may be addressed for END USER by adding few features to unattended-upgrades which seems to be default for stable default install. Currently, unattended-upgrades checks number of packages kept back and report to MOTD. For such END USER, if there is a 404 error condition flag file (3 consecutive errors? to turn on flag) by unattended-upgrades, it should not be too difficult to add that report to MOTD. As for more GUI type environment, currently GNOME Package program generates pop up via GNOME notification service (?)when packages are ready to be installed. The same code may be modified to pop up message for failed fetching of apt HTTP connection while network is active. What do you think of reassigning this bug to unattended-upgrades ? Osamu
Hi, This may not address very old releases but for the future releases, your concern may be addressed for END USER by adding few features to unattended-upgrades which seems to be default for stable default install. Currently, unattended-upgrades checks number of packages kept back and report to MOTD. For such END USER, if there is a 404 error condition flag file (3 consecutive errors? to turn on flag) by unattended-upgrades, it should not be too difficult to add that report to MOTD. As for more GUI type environment, currently GNOME Package program generates pop up via GNOME notification service (?)when packages are ready to be installed. The same code may be modified to pop up message for failed fetching of apt HTTP connection while network is active. What do you think of reassigning this bug to unattended-upgrades ? Osamu
right. (though I disagree with 'very old releases' and rather say 'previous releases' but that's maybe because I'm very old :) this should also work for other desktop environments, no? maybe. maybe *cloning* the bug and reassigning would be more proper...
Hi, Not as old as I am :-) Seriously, I meant any thing older than oldstable is very old. I have not checked how exactly things are connected, TBH. I think code in apt package which is called by unattended-upgrades is the one suffering 404 error. Probably yes. At least, they may point us to right people. Osamu
I just filed #1027796 which is about the same user requirement, but, I think, in a different context. As I say there, I think we can and should address this in multiple places. Thanks, Ian.