Subject: bug#36636: Tell users to update/reconfigure regularly

From: Ludovic Courtès <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Jul 2019 16:59:16 +0200

Hello,

"pelzflorian (Florian Pelz)" <[email-masked]> skribis:

> When installing Guix System from the iso image, users should be told
> to pull and reconfigure regularly.  Even though it is mentioned in the
> manual, not everyone reads manuals.  I believe Guix’ target users
> include inexperienced users who do not know that they should update
> and upgrade regularly.  Therefore the installer should tell users how
> to do so and that it is important and perhaps what to do if things
> break.

The ‘guix’ command itself tells you to do so.  But of course, if you
never run ‘guix’, you never see that message.

> Of course, some users still won’t update and they should have the
> liberty to decide for themselves, but some users just forget to
> update.  Ubuntu defaults to automatic updates, which slow down the
> machine and annoy users.  Still, maybe there should be notifications
> like a cron job invoking libnotify’s notify-send.

Sounds like something we can do.

Ultimately though, what can we do for users who do not read the manual
and do not run ‘guix’ either?  Would a notification really help?

Longer-term I think we should have an unattended upgrade service, and it
should probably be part of ‘%desktop-services’.

Thoughts?

Ludo’.