apt dist-upgrade shows crap messages (really poor user experience)
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
ubuntu-advantage-tools (Ubuntu) |
Opinion
|
Undecided
|
Unassigned |
Bug Description
I executed following in terminal
$ sudo apt update && sudo apt dist-upgrade
and received following mess:
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
Get more security updates through Ubuntu Pro with 'esm-apps' enabled:
vlc-plugin-qt libvlc5 libimage-
imagemagick vlc-bin libjs-jquery-ui vlc-l10n libmaven3-core-java
libavdevice58 ffmpeg libopenexr25 libmagick++-6.q16-8 python3-scipy
libpostproc55 libmagickcore-
libimage-
imagemagick-6.q16 libswscale5 libeditorconfig0 libmagickcore-
vlc-plugin-
libswresample3 imagemagick-
libvlc-bin vlc-plugin-base vlc-plugin-
Learn more about Ubuntu Pro at https:/
#
# An OpenSSL vulnerability has recently been fixed with USN-6188-1 & 6119-1:
# CVE-2023-2650: possible DoS translating ASN.1 object identifiers.
# Ensure you have updated the package to its latest version.
#
The following packages have been kept back:
gjs libgjs0g libspeechd2 python3-speechd speech-dispatcher speech-
The following packages will be upgraded:
alsa-ucm-conf debootstrap dkms ghostscript ghostscript-x gir1.2-adw-1 gir1.2-
gnome-
libgnome-
libvirt-daemon libvirt-
libvirt-
thunderbird-
44 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 7 not upgraded.
11 standard LTS security updates
Need to get 136 MB of archives.
After this operation, 30,7 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n]
This has two big problems:
(1) Ubuntu Pro ad cannot be disabled which causes lots of extra clutter on the output which will result in *training people to skip reading* the output of dist-upgdade. This is obviously a big problem and to "fix" that problem, new "important" message has been prefixed with "# " to make it more visible. If this trend continues, I'm sure next message will have "##### ***** NOTICE THIS IMPORTANT MESSAGE!!#"!"!!! *****" to make people notice the important part. Command line administrative tools should be about real stuff, not a shouting contest over ads. If you truly think ads should be enforced, keep it to the login message only.
(2) The new message is unneeded crap about unspecified openssl package *that I already have installed*! I found this by googling the warning message and finding page https:/
If you think that the message about CVE-2023-2650 is important enough to be displayed even if the package has already been installed ("tell friends about this"), then very minimum should be explicitly saying the package name and minimum version with the fix. Only having text "the package" doesn't cut.
ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 22.04
Package: apt 2.4.9
ProcVersionSign
Uname: Linux 5.19.0-
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu82.5
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckR
CurrentDesktop: MATE
Date: Thu Jul 13 13:04:19 2023
InstallationDate: Installed on 2022-03-25 (475 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS "Focal Fossa" - Release amd64 (20220223)
RebootRequiredPkgs: Error: path contained symlinks.
SourcePackage: apt
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to jammy on 2023-05-25 (48 days ago)
apt is not responsible for ubuntu pro messages. As advertised by the introductory message you can turn off pro's news feature with sudo pro config set apt_news=False