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Asked: 2023-04-02 02:47:39 +0800 CST

can i avoid automatic updates and stay in the Ubuntu universe?

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I have a cluster of 7 machines, all running Xubuntu. I use them for a very compute-intense hobby, which make me distrust automatic updates or anything else that might force a reboot even on a weekly basis.

For example, on one machine today -- the only one that has updated to 22.04 -- Firefox was reporting tabs crashing when I was just doing a search. I was unable to fix that with anything short of a reboot. I suspect it was some side-effect of the conversion to snaps, but I don't know that.

I also remember seeing references to other things that amount to updates happening without my approval or interventions. I'm suspicious of such stuff affecting the stability of my cluster, given that I may have a task that runs for a month. No kidding.

I'm not married to the X flavor of Ubuntu, but I chose it because it seemed to have the least amount of burden from features I do not care about. I live my life in the terminal, and pretty much avoid GUI programs aside from web browsers and a few things like gparted.

I can switch to Chrome, and avoid the snaps, but worry that there are other things trending in the Ubuntu universe that are going to make it hard to stay here.

I cannot just disconnect from the internet because my most useful machine (with 3 monitors) is both my contact to the outside and the leader of my work (has a large RAID with my database).

Does anyone have hard info about all this?

Difference from prior questions: I want to know about snaps, which I have not found elsewhere. I wanted to be sure the answers were current, because the prior question that was suggested to me had been asked 10 years ago. I wanted some clarity (because I had a lot of confusion) with respect to the symptoms on the machine that "went weird" on me. I got all that now. Thanks.

upgrade

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    "Force a reboot" would be caused by a crash (bug), not by design of Ubuntu.

    • Snaps do not require a reboot under any circumstances (except Ubuntu Core snap-only systems, of course). And even Ubuntu Core systems simply notify you; they don't auto-reboot unless you so set them.
    • All other flavors of Ubuntu will simply record that a reboot is needed to load a newer kernel. But those systems still won't auto-reboot unless you change a setting in /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades.

    "updates happening without my approval or interventions"

    • Snap updates can easily be controlled. See man snap. Here's one trivial way: 
      sudo snap refresh --hold=5d firefox
sudo snap refresh --unhold
    • Deb updates can also be easily disabled: 
      sudo systemctl stop apt-daily.timer
sudo systemctl start apt-daily.timer

    WARNING: Disabling automatic updates is a Very Bad Idea for most users. It means no security updates. No CVE patches. No bugfixes. You're taking complete responsibility for marking your calendar and installing them in a timely manner. If your system gets compromised due to missing CVE patch, that's on you.

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