Tired of Windows

Are we talking about updates now?

I don't do updates on my funtoo system that often. Once each week or every other week. The reason for that is my CPU only having 4 cores / 4 threads, so I can max set MAKEOPTS="-j5".

It takes a while to compile stuff then. I really need a new CPU.
 
Funtoo/Gentoo are different. Debian and Mint, etc aren't source distros, and it's much faster to update a binary package distro.

That being said, I update my Gentoo system every other day, but my Sid systems weekly or so, because I don't use them as much.
 
The issue my mother had with the Google Chrome repo came to mind, which is why I suggested looking at the update output. I have not actually seen the issue in the GUI, but that's because I took care if it for my mother over SSH. She is not a computer person, so I set up SSH on her computer since that makes it easier to provide help from my home.

Regarding updates in general, since I'm running the testing repos on Arch I mostly update whenever there is an update. I have one workspace set up with a few terminal windows running htop and a few looping scripts I wrote to keep track of temperatures and available updates. The script that check for updates refreshes every 30 minutes and I'll update if I see an update available. I might postpone it day at most it if I don't feel like managing whatever manual intervention an update might require, but that also depends on what packages have updates available.
 
What a bunch of very important information, thank you very much Daerandin and ThunderRd!
The red "X" on the shield in my "Tray" (sorry, don't know the official Linux name for it) wasn't there in today's first boot up.
Right clicked it and the "shield" disappeared--now it's back, still blue, yay! Wow, this is really nice, the Update Manager says:

"03.09@16:03 ++ Launching mintUpdate
03.09@16:03 ++ Starting refresh
03.09@16:03 ++ Initial refresh will happen in 10 minutes, 0 hours and 0 days
03.09@16:03 ++ Found 3 recommended software updates
03.09@16:03 ++ Refresh finished
03.09@16:13 ++ MintUpdate is in tray mode, performing initial refresh
03.09@16:13 ++ Starting refresh (including refreshing the APT cache)
03.09@16:13 ++ Auto-refresh will happen in 0 minutes, 2 hours and 0 days
03.09@16:15 ++ Found 6 recommended software updates
03.09@16:15 ++ Refresh finished
03.09@17:40 ++ Starting refresh (including refreshing the APT cache)
03.09@17:42 ++ Found 6 recommended software updates
03.09@17:42 ++ Refresh finished"

No complaint about a "error in checkAPT.py could not refresh the list of updates"

Progress that Linux or Mint Linux did all by itself! Can I get a yaaay?! Yaaay!
 
Sorry, repo is just short for (software) repository. When you update your system, the package manager (the software that takes care of installed packages, updates, removal of packages) will first synchronize with the repositories that it is configured to check. Once it has synchronized, it will compare the versions of installed packages on your system with the versions in the repos. If your versions don't match repo versions it will then want to update those specific packages. Many people make unofficial repos (commonly known as PPA for Ubuntu/Mint) which usually provide packages not available in the official repos, or newer versions.

Keep in mind that the convenience offered by unofficial repos has the drawback of less security. With official repositories, you should generally be able to trust that the packages were built in a secure environment, and that there were no malicious modifications to the source code prior to compilation. But if you use unofficial repos then you are trusting some stranger unaffiliated with the distribution. Since package installation and updates run with root privileges, you are basically giving a stranger root access to your system.
 
Daerandin said:
Have you guys installed Chrome on your Mint systems from the Chrome .deb installer available from Google? This will add a Chrome repo to your system, and recently this repo seems to be unavailable. I encountered this since my mother is running Mint and started seeing issues with her updates. This does not prevent Mint from updating, but it will complain since one repo can't sync.

I do not know why it is unavailable, and I suppose one would have to ask google about that.

In any case, to get more detailed information on why things are not working as they should, open a terminal and type:

Code: 
sudo apt-get update

This is the same as refreshing your list of updates and does not actually install any updates. But running this in terminal should provide a much more detailed explanation of what is going wrong. So run the command until it finishes, and then post the output.
Click to expand...
Yes, I noticed that for a few weeks now. Google must have moved the repository...
I finally unchecked it in my "Additional Repositories" which means I won't automatically receive updates. I think this is why I've had a red "X" over my update manager.

Right now its pointing to:
http://dl.google.com/linux/chome/deb/ stable main /etc/opt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list
 
I try sort of somewhat successfully to keep aware of the shenanigans in the world of (crooked, naturally) finance. "Repo" has quite a few different meanings there. Glad to know that Software Repository is a much better kind of "repo."
Thank you for the explanation Daerandin.
The Red "X" has finally disappeared, yaay!
 
Here are screenshots of my Sid installation being updated with apt-get:
Screenshot_1.png Screenshot_2.png Screenshot_3.png Screenshot_4.png Screenshot_5.png Screenshot_6.png Screenshot_7.png Screenshot_8.png Screenshot_9.png compiz1.png

First, you see 'apt-get update' in shot 1 and 2. This is when the repos are hit, and the new file versions are downloaded to the local system. This syncs the local record of current packages with the up-to-date record in the repo itself.

In #3, you see 'apt-get dist-upgrade' going into play. As you see, it reports all the moves that it wants to make; which packages will be updated, held back, or removed, and if the package is new, or an upgrade. Apt-get also tells you how much it has to download in order to perform its tasks. It compares the local record of what you actually have installed to what versions are available in the repo.

In #5 I have OK'ed what it has to do, and it is beginning to do its thing: downloading the packages it needs from the server, and installing and configuring them. 6-9 show more of the same, installing and configuring updated packages.

The last screenshot is just a fun shot of how the notorious Compiz 'Cube' can display the workspaces. I have 5 workspaces on this machine, and can rotate through them with keystrokes. Compiz isn't really maintained anymore, with Wayland taking over, but I manage to keep this setup going just for some fun eyecandy to show friends. Most of the elements I have to build from source, and it's getting more and more complex as time goes by. Don't ask me how I do it, I'll have to kill you after I tell you.
 

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I do miss Compiz....It was ridiculously entertaining!
I kept waiting for it to be fixed in the next destro...then it faded...sigh
 
Most of what Compiz did got absorbed into plugins for Gnome, KDE, and Cinnamon
 
I always thought Compiz was a resource hog for Graphics cards. So I never used it. I am very happy with Mint's workspaces
 
booman said:
I always thought Compiz was a resource hog for Graphics cards. So I never used it. I am very happy with Mint's workspaces
Click to expand...

Right, the workspaces plugin is what I'm talking about. You can add effects to it that do a lot of what Compiz did as far as eye candy is concerned.
 
Gizmo said:
Most of what Compiz did got absorbed into plugins for Gnome, KDE, and Cinnamon
Click to expand...
However, the box in the pictures runs Xfce, and it's pretty much Gnome-free, so I don't have those options possible without a lot of packages I don't need otherwise.
 
Well, if you're running Xfce, the logical thought would be that you don't care about eye-candy, rather you want a fast a clean interface, which is kinda the opposite of Compiz. :)
 
I didn't know there were workspace plugins... i'll so some research
 
booman said:
I always thought Compiz was a resource hog for Graphics cards. So I never used it. I am very happy with Mint's workspaces
Click to expand...
That's what I liked about it! Kept my lazy ass Video cards jumping when I wasn't playing games!
(Hey if you've got it, flaunt it! ":O}
 
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