The Fedora Atomic Desktops do something new by clearly separating the System from the Apps.
I think this is a great approach, as the user pretty much doesnt have to interact with the system in any way, by using Flatpaks.
Current implementations into GNOME Software and KDE Discover allow users to see updates of the system in these Stores though. Discover also now seems to allow installing apps as RPMs (layering) from the store. Probably uninstalling (not override remove) too.
What do you prefer, how do you do your Updates, how do you use these Stores?
Updates and Installs (Flatpak and RPM layering) through the GUI Software stores
Updates + RPM layering through CLI manually, Flatpaks through GUI
Updates through an automated background service. Manual installs through GUI
Updates through an automated background service, only Flatpak installs through GUI. RPM layering through CLI.
CLI for everything
Second question:
Would you like to have notifications about updates seperated from the main software center?
The purpose of this survey is to get an idea of how people like to do this. Poorly Discourse has no real survey tool.
I personally to 4. I see no value in having interactive and kinda crashy updates through packagekit, if I click āyesā 100% of the time.
I have disabled any Discover background notifications and have a background systemd service updating rpm-ostree and flatpak.
Only waydroid (sudo waydroid update) and fwupd are not yet automated.
fwupd is a pretty annoying thing, as it requires some sort of battery detection, a GUI kdialog (yes/no) reboot dialog and all. But then, it could be done.
I want to use Discover for Flatpaks only. No loading when launching it, simply to discover new apps. I have never installed an RPM there, as the best way to do these changes is via a combined command like
In your options list, does āinstallsā mean layered RPMs or flatpaks?
Iām pretty happy with GNOME Software with automatic updates enabled (for both rpm-ostree and flatpak). Performance is mostly fine now, but memory usage is still a bit high. I typically use it to install flatpak apps as well.
If I may be pedantic, PackageKit isnāt installed on Atomic systems. Software and Discover talk to rpm-ostree directly.
No this is important! Thanks for the heads up, removed it. If Discover and Software dont need Packagekit for rpm-ostree I think thats something good.
Figured out for install I would need some more optionsā¦ will get messy. Edited the questions to be more clear, still not really covering every option for the sake of usability.
I personally do 2. I like to see whatās different about system updates, and that isnāt visible through Discover.
I want to somehow disable Discover from using rpm-ostree (only on my system), because Discover has too high a frequency of checking for updates to the system. Basically every hour or so, feels like. Itās annoying and a waste of cpu.
Ideally, if these two drawbacks were addressed, Iād be comfortable going GUI-only for the most part.
#3 already is happening. #4 is an arbitrary separation at this point, Gnome Software and Discovery already combine sources from flatpak and package repos (ie #1). The CLI methods for both flatpak and rpm-ostree have much needed functions when problems arise.
I do sort of a sporadic mix of all the above: I appreciate automated updates, and alternate between GUI and command-line tools depending on whether I want to browse for possible solutions (GUI) vs install known and specifically desired software (CLI).
I do tend to run manual extra system updates in the terminal periodically just because it feels safer, especially when I know thereās a new kernel or GPU driver. I always run a script with batched tasks like force-rebuilding the initramfs because Nvidia has burned me enough times in the past.