When applying software updates, updater window disappears

[Aere Greenway]

On slow machines (450 megahertz, with 512 megabytes RAM in this case), when you request to install the selected software updates, the system updater window disappears. Yet updates are being installed in the background, invisible to the user.

The only clue there is that this is happening, is if you watch what processes are executing, using the task manager.

Eventually (after a very long time on this machine), the CPU usage goes down to an idle state, yet no notification of a reboot being necessary appears (though a new kernel was one of the updates).

If at that point, I bring up the software updater, it then informs me that a reboot is required.

Similar symptoms to this occur on Ubuntu-Studio (Xubuntu) 12.04, except that the update manager window stays visible, and eventually says that a reboot is required.

I want to watch the update process. I don't want it to happen in the background (with no notification that it is finished) - especially on this slow machine.

This doesn't happen on any of my other machines running Lubuntu 12.10, or Ubuntu-Studio 12.04 LTS.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.10
Package: update-manager 1:0.174.4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.5.0-26.42-generic 3.5.7.6
Uname: Linux 3.5.0-26-generic i686
ApportVersion: 2.6.1-0ubuntu10
Architecture: i386
Date: Sun Mar 24 19:17:55 2013
DpkgHistoryLog.txt:
 Start-Date: 2013-03-24 19:11:12
 Commandline: /usr/sbin/synaptic
 Remove: linux-image-3.5.0-21-generic:i386 (3.5.0-21.32), linux-image-extra-3.5.0-22-generic:i386 (3.5.0-22.34), linux-image-3.5.0-22-generic:i386 (3.5.0-22.34), linux-image-extra-3.5.0-21-generic:i386 (3.5.0-21.32)
 End-Date: 2013-03-24 19:13:51
GsettingsChanges:
 b'com.ubuntu.update-manager' b'first-run' b'false'
 b'com.ubuntu.update-manager' b'launch-time' b'1364163135'
 b'com.ubuntu.update-manager' b'show-details' b'true'
 b'com.ubuntu.update-manager' b'window-height' b'500'
 b'com.ubuntu.update-manager' b'window-width' b'600'
InstallationDate: Installed on 2012-05-11 (317 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Lubuntu 12.04 "Precise Pangolin" - Release i386 (20120423.1)
MarkForUpload: True
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: update-manager
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to quantal on 2012-10-19 (156 days ago)

[Aere Greenway (aere)]

The system this occurred on is running Lubuntu 12.10.

I have been living with this problem for a long time, hoping it would get fixed, but decided I might be the only person using a slow enough machine to trigger the problem.

 I think it also used to happen on Lubuntu 12.04.

[Joeri Eilander (fazioliamboina-deactivatedaccount)]

the official Ubuntu Documentation recommends a 1 GHz Pentium 4 with 1 gigabyte of RAM and 5 gigabytes of hard drive space, or better.[44] For less powerful computers, there are other Ubuntu distributions such as Lubuntu and Xubuntu.

this is not a bug, we just dont support you.

[Aere Greenway (aere)]

As I said in my bug report, and in the comment I posted immediately upon posting it, I am using lubuntu 12.10, which has system requirements within the range that I used.

I was not attempting to use Ubuntu, which has become the most bloated and slow of all of the Ubuntu variants.

I repeat (since you didn't notice it before), I already am using lubuntu.

[Aere Greenway (aere)]

I just observed this problem on a 1.7 gigahertz machine having 1 gigabytes of RAM, which is within the minimum system requirements you used as your rationale for ignoring the problem.

The system was reporting a crash in the system-updates notifier (apport), and apparently that slowed down the system enough to expose the bug, even on this faster machine.

[Aere Greenway (aere)]

I just tried the Software Updater (Update Manager) on Lubuntu 12.10, on my 450 megahertz machine, and for the first time, the window showing packages being downloaded (and later updates being applied), appeared, and did not go away, which is what I expected to happen.

With faster machines, the problem of this bug-report would sometimes happen, and sometimes not. So I don't know if the problem has been fixed, or if it just got lucky this one time. But this is the first time I have ever seen it work on the 450 megahertz machine.

I also tried it on UbuntuStudio 12.04 (on the 450 megahertz machine), but the problem was still evident there. So if it is fixed in Lubuntu 12.10, that fix is not in UbuntuStudio 12.04. I no longer have any Lubuntu 12.04 machines, so I can't test it on that level of Lubuntu.

[Aere Greenway (aere)]

Whatever made it work in Lubuntu 12.10, is not in Lubuntu 13.04. It has never yet worked in 13.04, so I will be going back to using the manual update method.

[Leo B. (fuzzbuntu)]

I have been observing a similar bug on both 13.04 and 13.10 on a Lenovo X220 (mobile Core i7 w/2 cores @ 2.7 Ghz and 8 GB RAM).