Comment 10 for bug 723826

Sorry, Dmitrijs, I replaced your questions without answering them. :-)

"Does the software updater download updates in the background by default as well?"

It does for security updates, if you choose "Download automatically" in the "Software & Updates" settings. An equivalent setting for non-security updates would make sense too. I've just reported that as bug 1173208.

"Both the installer and software updater should be consistent with respect to pre-downloading updates in the background..."

The number of updates available when you are installing is probably much greater than on any occasion when Software Updater appears -- because you're probably installing more than a week after release day, while Software Updater opens about weekly. Therefore, downloading updates while installing saves you more time than downloading updates during normal Ubuntu use would. That doesn't mean we shouldn't have the latter option, just that it's arguably less important.

"...as otherwise software updater will pop up and still say that downloading is required."

That doesn't matter. We aren't promising to finish downloading *all* available updates during installation. It's fine for Software Updater to show updates regardless of whether they are completely, partly, or not at all downloaded.