Last month, the Linux Mint team published a post on the organization's official blog about the importance of installing security updates on machines running the Linux distribution.
The essence of the post was that a sizeable number of Linux Mint devices was running outdated applications, packages or even an outdated version of the operating system itself.
A sizeable number of devices run on Linux Mint 17.x, according to the blog post, a version of Linux Mint that reached end of support in April 2019.
A new blog post, published yesterday, provides information on how the team plans to reduce the update reluctance of Linux Mint users.
Next to showing reminders to users, Linux Mint's Update Manager may enforce some of the updates according to the blog post.
In some cases the Update Manager will be able to remind you to apply updates. In a few of them it might even insist.
Enforcing updates is an option according to the blog post. The team goes on to explain that the new functionality will be configurable.
We don’t want it to be dumb and get in your way though. It’s here to help. If you are handling things your way, it will detect smart patterns and usages. It will also be configurable and let you change the way it’s set up.
Upcoming versions will provide information on the implementation, how the "insisting" part may look like, and whether the installation of updates will be enforced.
The two blog posts highlight that update reluctance is not only a thing on Windows. There are several explanations when it comes to avoiding the installation of software updates or operating system updates:
- Unclear how updates are installed or that updates are available.
- New versions introduce changes that are unwanted.
- Fear that updates may introduce errors or may crash the entire system, or even make it unbootable.
All of this boils down to a single question: how far should operating system developers go when it comes to updates?
There is a clear danger in not applying updates that introduce security fixes. Running old versions that have security updates could result in attacks being carried out successfully against systems.
Should the companies and organizations that develop operating systems enforce updates because of that or use notification systems to inform only but keep the update decision in the hands of the administrators?
Now You: what is your take on update enforcements?
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