Bug#977158: gnome-sofware: gnome software updates the kernel without my consent. My wifi driver needs to be recompiled.

[Simon McVittie]

On Sun, 13 Dec 2020 at 08:57:37 +0100, Alexandre Abbes wrote:
> Le 12/12/2020 à 18:50, Andrei POPESCU a écrit :
> > The kernel should be updated regularly, primarily for security.
> 
> I do not agree with automatic updates without my consent, especially for the
> kernel.

Well, you can't both win: the defaults cannot possibly be right for both
of those points of view. If automatic kernel updates were not provided,
we'd have people complaining equally angrily that Debian was not secure.

Luckily, there are settings for this: you can turn off automatic updates.
If you don't want automatic updates, please turn them off. In Debian 10,
see the app menu (next to Activities in the top bar). In testing/unstable,
the equivalent menu has moved to the titlebar of the GNOME Software window.

Note that if you have the unattended-upgrades package installed, it will
install updated packages without gnome-software being involved. This is
not a gnome-software bug. You can configure this by running
software-properties-gtk (which is also available as "Software Repositories"
in the GNOME Software menu), and then navigating to the Updates tab; or via
`sudo dpkg-reconfigure -plow unattended-upgrades`, as documented in
/usr/share/doc/unattended-upgrades/README.md.gz; or by editing
configuration files in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d.

(No, it isn't ideal that we have two parallel mechanisms trying to upgrade
packages, but this is the price we pay for Debian being a loosely-coupled
system where GNOME is not the only supported desktop environment.)

> A beginner would throw this debian-gnome system out of the windows.

A beginner wouldn't install kernel modules from outside Debian.

If you set up your out-of-tree kernel modules with DKMS (like the
out-of-tree modules in Debian, such as aufs-dkms and ndiswrapper-dkms),
then they'll be recompiled automatically with every kernel upgrade.

> For me the programm should be
> 
> *either disabled by default, because updates are very easy with apt.

A beginner wouldn't necessarily know how to run apt. We can't assume
that every Debian user is as experienced with Unix CLI tools as you.

The defaults have to be suitable for people who wouldn't know how to
change the settings, because they are the people who have no other
practical option.

> *or improved to allow the user  give its agreement for the updates.

There's a setting for that; please use it.

    smcv