Bug#1072995: gnome-software: a method for disabling autostart should be documented, and perhaps made easier

[Philip Hands]

Package: gnome-software
Severity: wishlist

Some users do not actually benefit from gnome-software/packagekit, and
occasionally suffer as a result of it's presence.

A case in point is an elderly relative, who despite encouragement has never
found a reason to install a new package for themselves, so relies on me to do
upgrades, or suggest new packages.

However, occasionally they get bitten by what looks like #909804, where the
machine can become unresponsive immediately after boot or resume. Even without
that, if one is never going to use the functionality, the background downloads
are a waste of resources on both the local machine, and our mirror network.

That being the case, I think it might be useful to add something to the README
describing the best way to prevent gnome-software from autostarting.

An internet search turns up various suggestions (and reveals that I'm clearly
not alone in wanting a good answer to this question), the best of which seems to
be here:

  https://www.reddit.com/r/gnome/comments/gn8rs4/how_to_disable_gnome_software_autostart/

=-=-=-=-
  All this can be done by pasting these lines into terminal:

    mkdir -pv ~/.config/autostart && cp /etc/xdg/autostart/gnome-software-service.desktop ~/.config/autostart/
    echo "X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false" >> ~/.config/autostart/gnome-software-service.desktop
    dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/search-providers/disabled "['org.gnome.Software.desktop']"

  If you want to also disable Gnome Software automatic updates:

    dconf write /org/gnome/software/allow-updates false
    dconf write /org/gnome/software/download-updates false

  These steps do not neuter Software completely - you can still use it to install/remove apps.
=-=-=-=-

I think preserving the ability to use gnome-software (as in this suggestion) is
quite useful for many users, so that should definitely be one of the options
offered.

I'm guessing that the alternative solution that I've seen (masking the
packagekit service) would not allow gnome-software to continue working. If I'm
wrong about that, that might instead be the right thing to suggest.

For people who are never going to want to install software via the GUI, it would
be easier if it were possible to do e.g. `apt remove gnome-software`. This
currently doesn't do what one wants, as the dependency from gnome-core to
gnome-software means that one ends up removing much of gnome along with
gnome-software.

Would it be possible to use a Recommends: there instead, to enable this?

Cheers, Phil.