this post was submitted on 10 Oct 2023
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His dad just needs to put a password when asked. It's a 6-years-old kid task updating on most Linux distro.
That would be true if:
So, unless both of above are true, the dad will never (want to) update his system because "it works as is", sticking to old versions of software, never receiving bugfixes and neglecting security.
Most distro nowadays come with a gui to update. A pop up window appears asking if you want to update/upgrade. You can press "yes" and the password of the sudoer or admin user is asked. It has been like this for over a decade. For popular distros as Ubuntu or fedora over 15 years
Is it different for your distro?
He still doesn't care to.
Yes, probably because I stick with Arch and Slackware plus a lightweight environment. The only time I saw such a GUI was when I tried out Elementary just for fun.
What I consider a problem is that the user can simply dismiss or disregard the updates notification indefinitely. I know many non-tech-savvy people who do not understand the importance of updates, so they would be inclined to do exactly that. That is why unattended upgrades are probably a better option in such cases.
The process is so simple that there is no reason to not do it. My wife is non-tech person, I installed ubuntu on her laptop and she's very happy because it's faster than windows. I have never updated it for her. She does it. Only thing I have done is the upgrade to a new ubuntu release
You're a wise (wo)man. That is exactly the case. I've shown him how to do it in the GUI but he doesn't care to because, like you said, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
Thank you for answering. I can relate to manually updating my parents' systems once in a while but at this point I'm seriously considering unattended upgrades (updating over SSH is also a good idea).
NP, I don't consider it a big issue, I kick it off whenever I'm there and it takes about 10 minutes.
His own password which makes it even simpler.