Software Updates - deselected items don't go away

Thank you for your bugreport. Why do you consider this to be a bug?

(In reply to comment #1)
> Thank you for your bugreport. Why do you consider this to be a bug?

Because its not sensible behaviour. The service should not repeatedly ask the
user to install software which they have indicated they do not want.

It would be great if the update service kept track of such rejected software
installs so that the user could review them if they wanted to. But for me, I
would only expect to see the software I rejected in the main list to be
installed again, if it was a new version - ie a later release, than the one I
rejected.

But the user wants this software - it's installed on his system. Not keeping
your system up-to-date is bad practice and really makes no sense. If the user
does not want this software anymore, he should simply delete it.

(In reply to comment #3)
> But the user wants this software - it's installed on his system. Not keeping
> your system up-to-date is bad practice and really makes no sense. If the user
> does not want this software anymore, he should simply delete it.

Then why the checkboxes at all? Individual checkboxes create the impression the
user can choose to install them or not (which is only kind of half true).
Personally, if I know a particular piece of software is stable and works well on
my system, then I don't want to be forced to upgrade when there is a risk of the
upgrade changing some functionality I like, or worse breaking something else I
rely on.

Now you're messing up stability and security updates. During the development
phase of a release, you get lots of updates, that's because it's in development.
After release you only get *security* updates, which you really should install.
The checkboxes are a misfeature imho, but they may be useful when you have
download limits and want to be up-to-date as much as possible.

I often use the checkboxes.

Let's say there are 4 updates, one is a kernel update. I have had a few kernels
break my Nvidia in the past, so I deselect this one and wait a couple of days
until I'm sure it will work. But there is no need for me to hold back
everything just for this.

Interesting discussion. I agree with the original bug report for the reason of bandwidth and possible hardware breakage. I hate really old bugs like this which just sit here, so how about I make this into a more concrete suggestion:

* Update Manager needs a new section with the function of holding 'Deselected Updates'
* When run, Update Manager should present the section of previously deselected updates at the end of the list
* Previously deselected updates should remain deselected but selectable
* A newer version of a previously deselected package should show up as a new preselected update
* When a newer update is available any entries for deselected versions of the same software should be removed from Update Manager's list

What do you good people think of that proposal? Does it meet the various goals? What do we do about making sure users are aware of the security issues? Is this a workaround for some other problem... like a better way to distribute security updates to low-bandwidth systems?

I'm setting this bug to invalid due to its disputable validity. It would be better if this idea would be created on http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/ . More people visits that site than this bugreport. Let them decide.