Comment 4 for bug 876146

@Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)

Thanks for the feedback, i was not sure where to place this as it affects many areas in ubuntu.

Can anyone suggest specific areas or does this affects ubuntu itself?

Also the "Upgrade Popup" (not sure which project it is) needs some changes in design to offer some alternatives that are safer for users who just want to try a new release, but keep their old/current one intact and functional (specially if this is their only OS installed).

Sure, is not intentional, but right now is like a mouse trap waiting for a new unsuspecting victim to click on the button...

We do everything we can to help in the forums, but users tolerance are getting thinner with every release.

For example this next user had several bad updates/upgrades and even lost data, some other users instead of helping were trying to fault him and things went down hill pretty fast. The sad thing is that these type of cases are not uncommon:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1861749

Many more go unreported and they just switch back to what they were using before or go elsewhere.

Upgrading or not users need a warranty that their computers will always be bootable or have some sort of fall back all the time.

I agree with both practical solutions: "make upgrading more reliable, or not offer the function at all."

Since upgrading is risky, this should be left only to advance users who are not afraid of breaking their system, because they have multiple fall backs (various computers or various test partitions) and have the patience/knowledge/time to fix the problems.

***So the initial proposal would be something like this:

- Dont show the upgrade button to users. Not "directly" upgrading is the only warranty that non technical users will have a working system.

- The "Upgrade popup" should become a "New release available to try" popup: this means offering fail-safe options like try from an USB stick or CD (clicking the TRY button should automatically download the latest ISO and let the user choose create a live- USB or CD).

- The commands should still be available, but only to advance users who research them first. Those who want to take this path should also get a warning that its at their own risk and that Canonical is not responsible. But they will be able to send feedback or upload an upgrade-report to improve the process (like you mentioned).

- In the future when upgrading becomes much more reliable (and thanks to the creation of backup first, integration with Btrfs's snapshot system or something else), then make the function 1 click again.

The new PP cycle should be specially important for keeping ubuntu as problem free as possible.

Thank you.