No close option, only restart

[liamdawe]

The latest updates to "software updater" in 12.10 has only given one option in the pop up after installing updates and that is to restart, where is my restart later or close option?

<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoftwareUpdates#Launching_automatically>: "Software Updater should launch automatically ... when ... security updates require a restart to finish installing, and it has been at least 24 hours since you were told about this; or ... non-security updates require a restart to finish installing, and the “When there are other updates” interval has passed since Software Updater was last open (either automatically or manually)."

<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoftwareUpdates#restart>: "If no updates are installable, but a restart is required to finish installing previous updates, a “Software Updater” alert should appear, with text “This computer needs to restart to finish installing updates”, and “Settings…”, “Restart Later” and “Restart Now…” buttons."

<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoftwareUpdates#alert>: "If appropriate, the alert should have secondary text: “The computer also needs to restart to finish installing previous updates.”"

<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoftwareUpdates#After_installing>: "After installing, Software Updater should behave as if it has just finished a manual check for updates ... whether it be showing updates that remain uninstallable, showing that a restart is required, showing both at once, or showing that everything is up to date."

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Edward Donovan (edward.donovan)]

One thing - closing update manager from the Unity quicklist is still available. Right click on the launcher icon. I think the new design is intended to push users to restart soon. That's basically a good thing, and from my POV as a user, having that one way to close it may be enough. Thanks.

[Rocko (rockorequin)]

Thanks for pointing out the workaround - I hadn't seen that. But it's a pity that we have to learn workarounds for basic issues like this. Sometimes I'm prompted to restart when I know for a fact that I don't need to.

And while we're on usability bugs, does update-manager have to do an update each time you run it?-It takes ages to complete. And it no longer remembers whether you have the 'view details' pane open from last time - you have to open it every time to run it if you want to see what has changed.

[Edward Donovan (edward.donovan)]

In duplicate bug 1051828, Michael Muller makes this point:

"After applying updates via update-manager, a window pops up which tells the user to restart his system. Unlike most windows, there is only a "ok" button but no "cancel" button. This may confuse people as they just click the button to kill that popup window (but actually, he just told his system to restart).

Therefore, there should also be a cancel button in case one does not want to restart his system."

[liamdawe (liamdawe)]

Wow someone finally decided to work on this?

[Jérôme Poulin (jeromepoulin)]

What's the hurry to restart so soon anyway? Don't mimic Windows, Adobe, Java and force the user to reboot with time wasting popups, you know the user will ignore it anyway.

[Fjodor (sune-molgaard)]

One of my main "selling" points when encouraging my friends and family to switch to Linux (and Ubuntu in particular) has been that restarts are seldom necessary - hitherto proudly displayed by the "Restart Later" button.

Incidentally, I'm not aware of any equivalent to the workaround mentioned in #2 under Cinnamon, so thus far I've ps ax|grep'ed update-manager and kill'ed the pid.

I use the terminal quite a lot, so I *can* continue to do this, but the symbolic value of trying to coerce me into rebooting when I might just as well choose a better, later, time to do so, by making me to jump through hoops in order to exercise this choice, gives me horror flashbacks to the times of Windows 95, which was what prompted me to turn to Linux in the first place.

If that's not a bug, usability- or otherwise, I don't know what is...

[pranith (bobby-prani)]

Please bring back the restart later button!

[Adrian Bridgett (adrian-bridgett)]

As a full time sysadmin this doesn't count as "usability". On XFCE it's time to resort to "xkill". Encourage restarts by all means, but leaving the box up like this is acting as a nanny state which just annoys people. It's almost as bad as the one Windows had(has?)

[Gerry (gerry-spm+lnchpad)]

How did this make it through? Is there any automated testing to prevent against core interface buttons get deleted?

[liamdawe (liamdawe)]

Matthew any word on if you are still working on this?

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Yes, I just need to define what exactly the "Restart Later" button would do. When would it remind you again? For a security update that requires restart, if you choose not to restart, you are in a situation equivalent to not having the update installed. So perhaps the reminder should be as frequent as the normal update notification.

[Pablo180 (paultait22)]

What about using a timed notification, e.g. every 30 mins a reminder pops up in the notification area. Much less obtrusive than something that needs to be clicked away, but significantly nagging enough that the user would remember and restart fairly shortly after the update.

That would certainly work for me.

[Stefan Beller (stefanbeller)]

Both ideas are way too nagging in my opinion.
Currently(?) or in former versions of Ubuntu you just had the Menu Button being colored differently, i.e. red.
This would be enough for me to know I need to restart soon.

However I do not want to be restricted or distracted while having not restarted, e.g. I need to finish important work first, so I need full concentration.

Also it's the users freedom to not restart soon, so the user should not be jailed in any way there.

[Fjodor (sune-molgaard)]

Re the past 3 comments, I'd like to suggest no "repeat nagging", but instead of the text "Restart Later", we might say "I'll restart (by my?) myself" or something to that effect.

Not only does that mimic the earlier behaviour of "restart later", but it actually and actively gives the message that the choice is now up to user, which can only be a UX win for all parties.

[nemesys (lp-helba)]

Please revert, this IS really annoying me to death!

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

(But not annoying enough for you to subscribe to the bug report, apparently.:-)

There's one more tricky issue to consider: what if you choose to restart later, but then other updates become available, and you open Software Updater to install those. Probably we'd need to embed a reminder to restart inside the normal updates alert. But we mustn't confuse it with the normal message that some of the not-yet-installed updates will require a restart.

[Fjodor (sune-molgaard)]

First of all, Matthew, thank you for actually working on this!

However, the following "fresh" idea might be based on a lack of knowledge about a change in the state of affairs of Linux software (possibly attributable to sky-rocketing complexity), but except for upgrades to large swaths of core system components - i.e. distribution-level upgrades - I have never, for the past 14 years, seen an upgrade that warranted forcing the user to reboot (though some can, beneficially, prompt a recommendation of restarting a service or some such, which dpkg and friends handle very well). GUI upgrades might very well require a restart of X, but that's about it, so perhaps we should work on developing functionality for dpkg and friends to queue those pending an X restart (and then, possibly, queue core lib upgrades pending this reboot that you seem to want to force upon people instead)...

Thus, I can, at most, agree to a message to the effect of "Due to the nature of the just completed upgrade, we recommend that you reboot afterwards - or take measures equivalent to a reboot as far as <package> is concerned."

This could, in answer to your false dilemma above, be supplemented by a "Since your last reboot, N package upgrades have prompted such a recommendation."

This should, of course, only be displayed in connection with upgrades that actually prompts a recommendation for a reboot, i.e. most certainly not at every single subsequent reboot!

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

An update never "forces" you to restart the OS. But when there is a security update for a component that Ubuntu does not have the technology to restart in-place (the kernel, glibc, etc), for as long as you don't restart, you are at just as much risk as if you hadn't installed the security update at all. (This is why Oracle sells Ksplice, for example.) So it's just as important to get you to restart as it was to prompt you about the update to begin with. That updates requiring restart aren't flagged ahead of time is bug 255443, and bug 802065 suggests a way of making the restarts quicker.

[Stefan Beller (stefanbeller)]

It's not just the bare operating system, but also a bunch of user programs.
I tend to have many programs opened at once, such as different editors for different tasks (programming in different languages requires different editors ;) or media players or chat windows.

So the restarting itself (of the OS) only takes a minute, but then starting all the user programs may take a while as well.

Some user programs cannot recreate the same state they are in, i.e. thunderbird starts with all tabs closed. I tend to use open thunderbird tabs as reminders for answering mail, hence a restart needs my attention in remembering what to open after the restart again.

This is why I am in strong favor of an 'Ok, I know my risk, but don't force me to restart, please!' button.

[Fjodor (sune-molgaard)]

Mathhew: Would it be reasonable for me to assume, then, that you will quit the nagging if you, somehow, magically, detect that I run Ksplice?

Regardless, a very valuable part of security assessment is possible attack vectors, and I'd be hard pressed to agree that prompting me to restart my private, NAT'ed, desktop machine because of an obscure glibc privilege escalation bug that requires physical access to the machine is the best way to go about these sort of things.

As Stefan, below, points out, there are a number of very good reasons, usability-wise, to forgo an immediate reboot, and if the best you can come up with in defense is what you just wrote, I do believe Microsoft has a few positions open still, if a desire to force the end-user's hand just happens to be you're particular fetish... If this is the case, this sort of forcing might even be in order on that particular platform, so how could you lose?

Apologizing in advance for my above comment, I'd like to state, more diplomatically, that your case for immediate reboots is weak, and your insistence on them - to the effect of forcing them upon the users who don't happen to know of 'ps ax|grep update-manager' and a subsequent kill is exactly the thing that we *don't* need if we are ever to gain any significant market share in the Desktop segment.

[Stefan Beller (stefanbeller)]

Maybe there could be 2 buttons,
"Restart" and "Do not restart".

The "Do not restart" button is gray and disabled at first and only becomes clickable if you
enable a checkbox "I know my risk about not restarting, I really want to restart later" with a link explaining what Matthew wrote (No security until restarted)

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Fjodor, sure, it would make sense to special-case Ksplice, if a non-trivial proportion of Ubuntu users ran it. There are always exceptions like that, and like the NAT case, and deciding whether to handle them would be much easier with stats about how common they are.

Nobody has ever suggested an immediate reboot. That is a straw man.

[Fjodor (sune-molgaard)]

Matthew, well, you are correct, of course, that the dialog asking for a reboot has been improved with an option to minimise it, but I still fail to see what the point in not making it closeable might be. This, to me, constitutes "suggesting an immediate reboot".

Anyway, barring a simple, non-explained option to close it, I do like Stefan's suggestion in comment #22 if you really do want people to reboot, as it would make the case for actually rebooting, but still signal that you, the user, is actually in charge. I can't stress enough how important the latter is for me, and has been for all the people I've successfully moved to Ubuntu!

[Fjodor (sune-molgaard)]

Matthew: It's really great to see you put so much work into this - though we may disagree, you are actually doing something!

I'd have to say that the upper left version appeals to me the most, although I disagree a bit with the phrasing. To the best of my knowledge, most *nix software doesn't need a reboot (I think we agree on that), but this is mainly a result of the *nix VM model of very limited abilities for processes to share memory, meaning that .so files will be loaded into memory by the process, and then stay there, unaltered, until the process terminates, meaning that running processes will happily utilise the pre-upgrade version until otherwise terminated, and then switch to using the new one upon restart.

Obviously, there are situations where it makes a lot of sense to switch to the new version (especially for security fixes), but in the vast majority of cases, a simple restart of the applications relying on those libs is all it takes, which is why dpkg is made to routinely restart dependent daemons.

Thus, the need for a real reboot of the actual machine is then reserved for kernel updates addressing vulnerabilities, or massively restructuring changes to other sorts of very basic things like major upgrades to glibc or some-such.

Furthermore, I have yet to see a .deb file that specifies things to be run upon the next reboot only "in order to finish the installation". This is a direct result of what I describe above, and one of the oddities of the Windows world to rely on post-reboot configuration (I'm sure that there are reasons that seemed logical at the time).

Therefore, I would, as said, recommend the upper left one, but with the text changed to something akin to "In order to take full advantage of this or earlier upgrades, a reboot is recommended." and then limit the packages that suggest a reboot to an absolute minimum.

Best regards and thank you for your work,

Sune

[Stefan Beller (stefanbeller)]

> Matthew: It's really great to see you put so much work into this!

Thanks from me as well :)

[thedanyes (thedanyes)]

Maybe this will clarify the situation: Let's say we turned this into a configurable behavior. What would the configuration option say? "Force user to reboot after updates - OFF/ON"

Can you imagine anyone purposely setting that option to ON for their own system? Of course not. Even people who take security updates very seriously might have something they want to do before they restart, and they definitely have the skill to click the restart option in the normal menu on their own.

The current behavior is ridiculous. Please see my comment on
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-manager/+bug/917452

If you want my recommendation: Give an informational notice dialog after installing security updates that require a reboot to take effect. It could say something like, 'Critical security updates have been installed, but they won't take effect until you reboot'. It should have a single button on it - 'OK'.

[Fjodor (sune-molgaard)]

thedanyes: As will be apparent from my comments above, you and I agree on this problem, but UX-wise, there should not be exactly *one* button - "OK", since some people might wonder whether that will trigger said reboot.

Thus, as I think has been covered above, there should be exactly two buttons, namely "Restart Now" and something to the effect of "I'll make the decision on when to reboot myself"...

[Jack Leigh (leighman)]

What was wrong with turning the shutdown menu bit red as in precise?

[Dražen Lučanin (kermit666)]

I also think that changing the shutdown menu color was enough. A close window option should definitely be returned.

If updates render the system unstable unless a restart is done right away, something should be done about the updating system itself (maybe mimic the Chromium approach, they did it quite well from what I've read about it) and not force the user to stop his/her work, restart and get all the apps back up. I doubt many users would do something like that in the middle of work, as Matthew Inman humorously portrayed.

    http://theoatmeal.com/pl/my_daily_lie/updates

What the current behaviour results in is that I minimize the window and it eats up my launcher and alt-tab space for the whole day (sometimes even longer if I choose to just suspend over-night) - which can be pretty frustrating.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

thedanyes, I think your hypothetical is addressed by my previous comment. If Ubuntu becomes extremely popular, and the proportion of people who delay restarting becomes a substantial security problem, it may indeed become necessary to "force" restarting, by changing the "Install" button to "Install and Restart" -- which, if clicked, logs out to a special session where Software Updater is the only thing running and it restarts when done. But for now at least, we aren't doing that.

Anyway, I've completed the design for this. <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoftwareUpdates?action=diff&rev2=101&rev1=100> A fair bit of work will be involved in keeping it all looking simple, but this is a summary of the changes required:

1. Software Updater should launch automatically not just when it has been 24 hours since you were last reminded that security updates were available, but also 24 hours since you were last reminded to restart to finish installing security updates. The reason is exactly the same in both cases; as long as the installation isn't finished, you aren't secure. And analogously for non-security updates with the non-security update interval.

2. The restart-required alert should have a "Restart Later" button. Hooray!

3. If updates are available *and* a restart is required to install previous updates, the latter should be shown with secondary text in the updates alert.

4. If updates are available and a restart is required to install both these updates *and* previous updates, we shouldn't bother with the "The computer will need to restart" text, because the computer already does need to restart.

5. When installation completes (whether successfully or unsuccessfully), Software Updater should generally behave as if you have just launched it manually -- showing whether updates are (still) waiting to be installed, a restart is required, both, or neither. This should simplify the code a bit.

[Fjodor (sune-molgaard)]

Mathhew: I still can't thank you enough for actually working on this, but I'm afraid I still disagree with some of the premises:

1) No update (except kernel if you aren't running ksplice) should require a restart for it's own sake. dpkg does provide for restarting daemons, in which case they will load the newly installed versions of any shared libraries. This is OS 101 (at least before MS DLL Hell)

2) If we can't convince maintainers of packages that would benefit from a restart *of the program* to do a micro-version release that restarts it (which we probably can in the vast majority of cases), display a list of daemons that would benefit from a restart.

3) Whereas I'll commend you for your own 2), 4), and 5), in the comment above, I still believe that:

A) Only kernel upgrades are actually valid reasons to reboot (if you require the new kernel). Ksplice seems to alleviate that somewhat. The premise for this assumption is that newly instantiated programs will pick the newest of the available libraries (unless their programmers came from MS land).

B) In re A), there still isn't a valid use case for replicating MS behaviour such as requiring reboots on a whim, when restarting the relevant programs will suffice.

C) What I'm describing here is the actual behaviour (and modus operandi) for most of the APT system, so I still have a hard time figuring out why anyone would want to, unnecessarily, replicate one of the most hated -bugs- / "features" of Windows...

[Fjodor (sune-molgaard)]

Observe in the above comment that we shift the responsibility to ourselves, as developers, instead of just dictating that we want the user to, essentially, throw away most of the context and focus of whatever work was done since the last reboot, just because we are lazy...

[Wolter HV (wolterh)]

It worries me that Canonical personnel like Mr. Mathew here have this ideology. The freedom of the user shall never be restricted in an OS like Ubuntu, and thus the Software Center or any other system application will never force a user to restart or do anything else at any time, he will be warned of repercussions and the best action will be of his judgement. This, while Ubuntu remains an OS of freedom.

[Andreas Altaïr Redmer (altair-ibn-la-ahad)]

I can still see the MessageBox in the source code and it has only the Reboot button. But anyway this works fine for me (using 12.04.2). The message, that I should reboot, is now directly on the update manager main window and after closing it I have the red notifier icon in the top right of the screen, that tells me to reboot.

Is anyone still able to reproduce this on 12.04 or higher?

[Teo (teo1978)]

@Andreas I think this is a regression in 12.10 that never existed in 12.04 and hasn't beeb addressed yet in 12.10
I am experiencing this in 12.10

[Axel H. (staff-pro-unreal)]

Hi,

I can confirm this. On my business PC runs 12.04 which allows me to close the upgrade dialog and leaves me the option to reboot or shutdown whenever I prefer to do so.
On my home PC, I'm running 12.10 which does not allow to close the dialog and ignore the reboot prompt. Why bothering users with a reboot? The reboot is suggested but not required.

I've chosen Ubuntu because it was offering more freedom than windows and now this? Come on ...
This is heading in the completely wrong direction. Freedom is one of the key features of Linux, so please don't take this essential thing away.

[Matt Vickers (mattyv)]

From my perusal of the comments, I don't think anybody has mentioned this particular option yet.

Restart -- Remind me later -- Don't remind me again

This might be a good short-term solution. As discussed, there's a tricky balance with how long you make the interval between repeat nagging, and making sure the user is actually reminded. With this proposed solution, the user opts in to whatever repeat nagging interval we set, but also has the option of opting-out.

I also agree with the comment about the shutdown menu button (top right of screen) becoming red acting as a more subtle reminder.

The current behaviour it far too reminiscent of Windows update suddenly getting in the way (and threatening to reboot in 30 seconds) during the middle of a presentation.

[thedanyes (thedanyes)]

I'd be fine with a 'restart later' button or a 'don't remind me again' button, though I still think it comes across as arrogant to imply an immediate restart should be done without giving the user any specific details about which update(s) require a restart or why a restart is necessary.

I still think an informational dialog box with a single OK button would be the simplest way to get the point across, and I don't particularly see the need for a restart button at all when the user already has another convenient way to restart.

[Teo (teo1978)]

> I'd be fine with a 'restart later' button or a 'don't remind me again' button, though I still think it comes across as arrogant to imply an immediate restart should be done without giving the user any specific details about which update(s) require a restart or why a restart is necessary.

I agree.

> I don't particularly see the need for a restart button at all when the user already has another convenient way to restart.

I disagree with this. If I (the user) do decide to restart because the update requires it (and I'm annoyed enough that it does), it's
- 1 click on "Restart",
vs
- 1click on Ok. Go to the topright corner of the screen. Click the menu button. Go down to the bottom of the menu. Click restart. Move the cursor to the popup window thata appears. Click restart.

[liamdawe (liamdawe)]

How this hasn't been sorted yet is beyond me for such a simple issue that people keep overcomplicating. Just give us a simple "I will restart later" button and then let us restart when we want. It can be that simple if the developers let it be.

[Fjodor (sune-molgaard)]

To be perfectly honest, in order to be able to defend this UX-wise atrocity, I think the persons responsible have a moral duty to explain in great detail to the developers and maintainers of every single other package manager - especially apt and dpkg - why they also need to implement this craziness themselves.

Furthermore, they need to make their argument in public, and when the inevitable (and justified) ridicule has died down, they need to be called to order and fix this, in order for update-manager to, at a minimum, make a giant leap forward in order to at least be on par with windows (which allows "restart later" where applicable), if they aren't going to aim for anything approaching the usual, better, UX of Linux proper...

If the continuing failure to fix this issue doesn't, failure to justify the need in excruciating and convincing detail, would, to my mind, justify virtual (and argumentatorial) torches and pitch forks.

Feel free to quote me for this at any given time!

[thedanyes (thedanyes)]

@matteosistisette
You wouldn't really need to click the okay, since you're restarting anyway, and it seems like the rest of your steps only lament how difficult it is to restart through the normal Ubuntu unity menu interface. If there's some issue with the normal restart process (and I'm not saying there isn't), I'd think that best addressed through a new bug/suggestion.

An attempt to make up for weaknesses in the normal restart process by adding new places to restart from doesn't make sense to me.

[Teo (teo1978)]

The normal process to restart, when you restart on your own initiative, is perfectly fine for me. But when the computer is suggesting you an **extra** restart that you didn't plan, which is needed to have the updates take effect, you should be able to accept and have it done with just one click, as you already can. The dramatic issue is that you can't refuse, and that must be fixed, but I wouldn't like to unnecessarily loose the ability to accept.

[Wolter HV (wolterh)]

(2013-05-31 15:29 UTC-0600) thedanyes <email address hidden>:
> An attempt to make up for weaknesses in the normal restart process by
> adding new places to restart from doesn't make sense to me.

Matteo is not asking for a new restart button or method, he is just
stating that if an update needs a restart to complete, the restart
button embedded in the dialog should be kept and not disposed of; it
just wouldn't make sense to get rid of it.

The only thing that is needed is a button to close the dialog without
restarting. Closing the dialog without restarting can be done in several
alternative ways, but it is unfriendly to the user not to have a
built-in way to do it.

[Teo (teo1978)]

> Closing the dialog without restarting can be done in several alternative ways,

Really? Oh please tell me one, I haven't found any (only minimizing, but it keeps showing up in the launcher)

[Wolter HV (wolterh)]

(2013-06-01 17:46 UTC-0600) matteo sisti sette
<email address hidden>:
>> Closing the dialog without restarting can be done in several alternative ways
> Really? Oh please tell me one, I haven't found any (only minimizing, but
> it keeps showing up in the launcher)

Well killing the process is the one I use. Run xkill and you will find a
cross as your pointer. Click on any window with it and both will vanish!

[bluebomber (bluebomber)]

You can also do SUPER+w to spread the windows, then you will see an X on
the window you want to close.

By the way, I am in agreement that this is a bug that needs fixing; the
fact that we are discussing all these alternative ways to close a window
is a little ridiculous.

On 06/01/2013 08:35 PM, Wolter Hellmund wrote:
> (2013-06-01 17:46 UTC-0600) matteo sisti sette
> <email address hidden>:
>>> Closing the dialog without restarting can be done in several alternative ways
>> Really? Oh please tell me one, I haven't found any (only minimizing, but
>> it keeps showing up in the launcher)
>
> Well killing the process is the one I use. Run xkill and you will find a
> cross as your pointer. Click on any window with it and both will vanish!
>

[Dražen Lučanin (kermit666)]

I would also like to see a "close" button back on that dialog. Don't bother users with this persistent window polluting the desktop.

There used to be a nice "restart recommended" indicator before by making the gear icon in the indicator menu red and IMHO that was more than enough. Those who are worried about the security of their OS will restart and those who just want to get on with our work will be able to do so without additional windows getting in their way.

If the updater UX remains so aggressive, it will only result in people turning off automatic updates [1] completely, causing much more severe security risks.

[1] http://lifehacker.com/5295449/disable-ubuntus-annoying-update-manager-popup

[Pablo180 (paultait22)]

I am just wondering whether it would be better to have an automatic restart, perhaps in a pop up warning that it will restart and giving an option to postpone like in Windows (and then perhaps ignore the postponed time, again like Windows). This would require even less thought on my part and allow the computer to restart willy nilly without warning. Which I am sure is much better for users, after all Windows does it. Hopefully my having multiple windows open and not having saved my work won't in any way impede the restart.

[Wolter HV (wolterh)]

Well I can only understand this suggestion as a joke! Since when is Windows
an example?

A timed restart is nothing but dangerous. The user is perfectly capable of
choosing when to restart.
If a non default option to enable the suggested behavior should exist, I
would have no problem though

[Tom Slominski (tomslominski)]

This is definitely one of the most annoying things in Ubuntu. At least it's not as pushy as it is in Windows. IMHO, it should just hide away in the system menu indicator (cog thing in the top right corner, whatever it's called) after the updates should be completed, gently reminding the user to restart but not insisting on doing so.

[Brett Glasson (brett-glasson)]

Well, nearly a year has passed and apparently there is no intention of fixing this. Lord knows there are a million other bugs in Ubuntu that need attention but putting an extra button on a dialog box is a pretty simple thing to implement. It could be done in an hour (actually less)

This is one of the most annoying behaviours of Windows and it irritates me to the extreme that Ubuntu has decided to follow Microsoft down that dark, user hostile path.

I am not, however, surpised in the least.

[Axel H. (staff-pro-unreal)]

> I am just wondering whether it would be better to have an automatic restart ... like in Windows

Excuse me, but WTF? What the hell have you been smoking? This is a disaster in usability.
"He I'm happily editing my Office document ... aaand its gone (due to a stupid unecessary reboot)."

[David N. Welton (davidnwelton)]

The user could be asked again on waking from sleep - that'd be a reasonable point for many people, because they just got their computer out and are preparing to use it, but are not in the middle of things.

[Jérôme Poulin (jeromepoulin)]

Well, when waking from sleep this means you're about to use the computer. Windows already does that and every time I postpone the restart anyway. Couldn't Ubuntu just restart programs and services which needs update anyway? The only reason for a reboot would be a local exploit which most desktop user don't care about. For everything else, just asking to restart the software like Firefox does would be enough and for background services they can mostly all be restart. So I'm still in favor of just changing the system's menu color.

[Matthew Brush (uvirjf2u-5qxm-hknftjnl)]

Doing stuff like disabling window manager close buttons is very very not cool.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

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[Vaclav Petras (wenzeslaus)]

This was mentioned here almost 59+1 times already but anyway, it seems that it needs to be said again. The soft requirement to restart was one of the Ubuntu selling points. Removing the "Restart later" button (which was the defaut) accompanioned then by soft reminder -- a red turn off button (in Ubuntu 12.04) is a terrible mistake which will disappoint current Ubuntu users and will not atract new users (if they like the MS Windows behavior they will stay with MS Windows and will not move to Ubuntu just to experience the same forced update/restart policy). The security concerns should be expresed by soft reminders such as red turn off button (or check box "I'm avare of the risk" + check box "Mark restart later as defaut button").

From the fact that still in Ubuntu 13.10 it is possible to quit the application from the panel without any further reminder of the need of restart (e.g. the mentioned red trun off button), although the close button is disabled and "Restart" (now) is the only and perhaps also selected button, can be infered that security is not such a issue here, but this is a just naive end user guess (which will turn into usage patter of course since it is how it goes).

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Matthew Brush, your patch is a first step, though re-adding the close button would just increase inconsistency between Compiz/Unity 7 (where dialogs can have close buttons) and Unity 8 (where none will).

More importantly, in its current state the patch contains a security vulnerability: if someone chooses "Restart Later" the system is left in an insecure state indefinitely, dependent on the user remembering that they had been told -- hours, days, or weeks ago -- that they needed to restart. Even if they reopened Software Updater manually it wouldn't tell them. That's why I outlined five steps to fixing this bug, of which your patch is #2.

[Matthew Brush (uvirjf2u-5qxm-hknftjnl)]

Matthew Paul Thomas, I don't know about Unity, I've never used it (using XFCE here), but it's kind of not a close button, more like a "dismiss" button, if that makes anyone feel better. All dialogs should have a way to close them without doing anything, always, even if it's like "Your house is on fire, do you want me to email the fire department?", it should still have a "No thanks" button or at the very least a window manager close button.

But anyways, the patch was just a quick hack I made in 3 minutes because I wanted to be able to close this dialog and with XFCE there's no way to close it from the GUI otherwise, but if you run update-manager again it shows the same nag dialog about restarting FWIW, it's how I tested the patch. It seems like pretty OK behaviour considering I've already been told I need to restart once and I willingly chose not to do so. Of course the previous behaviour before it was decided to take the user's computer hostage was probably better, but such is progress on the Linux desktop lately; one step forward, two steps back.

Feel free to ignore the patch and/or come up with some other better way that doesn't take my computer hostage, I'll gladly stop patching random Python scripts on my system :)

[Marc Deslauriers (mdeslaur)]

Here are some very preliminary debdiffs that implement 1-4. (Not exactly sure what #5 means yet.)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package update-manager - 1:0.196.6

---------------
update-manager (1:0.196.6) trusty; urgency=low

  * Allow user to close the restart required dialog (LP: #1033226)
    - Add a settings button
    - Add a "Restart Later" button
    - Rename existing button to "Restart Now..."
    - Add secondary text to updates dialog when a restart is still pending
      from last updates
 -- Marc Deslauriers <email address hidden> Sat, 11 Jan 2014 09:53:15 -0500

[Wolter HV (wolterh)]

On Thu, 2014-01-16 at 00:50 +0000, Launchpad Bug Tracker wrote:
> This bug was fixed in the package update-manager - 1:0.196.6
>
> ---------------
> update-manager (1:0.196.6) trusty; urgency=low
>
> * Allow user to close the restart required dialog (LP: #1033226)
> - Add a settings button
> - Add a "Restart Later" button
> - Rename existing button to "Restart Now..."
> - Add secondary text to updates dialog when a restart is still pending
> from last updates
> -- Marc Deslauriers <email address hidden> Sat, 11 Jan 2014 09:53:15 -0500
>
> ** Changed in: update-manager (Ubuntu)
> Status: In Progress => Fix Released
>

Finally! Thank you so much Marc.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package update-notifier - 0.151

---------------
update-notifier (0.151) trusty; urgency=low

  * If there are no updates available, still nag the user if a reboot is
    required, in case the notification window was dismissed. (LP: #1033226)
 -- Marc Deslauriers <email address hidden> Sat, 11 Jan 2014 09:28:25 -0500