Ubuntu – Trusty Software Updater does not propose updates from trusty-updates

aptupdate-managerupdatesupgrade

I have since one week upgraded several PC to Ubuntu 14.04 Trusty Tahr.

I got several updates via the Software Updater, but I don't get updates from trusty-updates, although this repository is selected in the settings dialog:

{here was a nice screenshot of the dialog showing:
X Important security updates (trusty-security)
X Recommended updates (trusty-updates)
O Pre-released updates (trusty-proposed)
X Unsupported updates (trusty-backports)

Automatically check for updates: Daily
Where there are security updates: Display immediately
Where there are other udpates: Display weekly
Notify me of a new Ubuntu version: For long-term support versions
}

There are however several updates available:

$ sudo apt-get upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages will be upgraded:
  compiz compiz-core compiz-gnome compiz-plugins compiz-plugins-default compiz-plugins-main-default
  compizconfig-backend-gconf compizconfig-settings-manager gir1.2-nautilus-3.0 gir1.2-rb-3.0 libcompizconfig0
  libdecoration0 libgexiv2-2 libido3-0.1-0 libnautilus-extension1a librhythmbox-core8 libselinux1
  libselinux1:i386 libselinux1-dev nautilus nautilus-data python-compizconfig python3-update-manager rhythmbox
  rhythmbox-data rhythmbox-mozilla rhythmbox-plugin-cdrecorder rhythmbox-plugin-magnatune
  rhythmbox-plugin-zeitgeist rhythmbox-plugins update-manager update-manager-core
32 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.

I did not test them all, but all of which I tested come from trusty-updates:

$ apt-cache policy compiz nautilus update-manager
compiz:
  Installed: 1:0.9.11+14.04.20140409-0ubuntu1
  Candidate: 1:0.9.11+14.04.20140423-0ubuntu1
  Version table:
     1:0.9.11+14.04.20140423-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://be.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-updates/main amd64 Packages
 *** 1:0.9.11+14.04.20140409-0ubuntu1 0
        500 http://be.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
nautilus:
  Installed: 1:3.10.1-0ubuntu8
  Candidate: 1:3.10.1-0ubuntu9
  Version table:
     1:3.10.1-0ubuntu9 0
        500 http://be.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-updates/main amd64 Packages
 *** 1:3.10.1-0ubuntu8 0
        500 http://be.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
update-manager:
  Installed: 1:0.196.11
  Candidate: 1:0.196.12
  Version table:
     1:0.196.12 0
        500 http://be.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty-updates/main amd64 Packages
 *** 1:0.196.11 0
        500 http://be.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ trusty/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Updates from trusty-security are done however. So I don't know if that's a bug or something I misconfigured?

[UPDATE]:

  • To answer comment below, I have some warnings / errors in ~/.cache/software-center/ as of today. Warnings like 'WARNING:main:no data, and even one ERROR - trying to repair DB failed. But they don't reproduce afterwards.
  • Also, one of the package is compiz. I went to check the changelog on Launchpad, and noticed the following history page: https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/trusty/amd64/compiz. It says "Phased updates", "40% of users". Could this be linked to that? Is there a way to bypass this phased updates when using the Software Updater (as when using apt-get)?

Best Answer

Hm, this seems to be exactly what PhasedUpdates are. Also check out http://www.murraytwins.com/blog/?p=127 and http://lwn.net/Articles/563966/.

To summarize links above:

  • Ubuntu quietly introduced a new mechanism in its 13.04 release that progressively rolls out package updates, pushing each update to a small subset of the total user base first, then steadily scaling up, rather than publishing the update for everyone simultaneously.
  • On the client end, phased updates are implemented in the update-manager tool, which is Ubuntu's graphical update installation application. The other methods for updating a package, such as apt-get, are not affected by the phased update plan.
  • update-manager generates a random number between zero and one for each package, then compares it to the Phased-Update-Percentage value published on the server for that package. If update-manager's generated number is less than the published percentage, then the package will be added to the list of available updates that the user can install. Dependencies for a package are pulled in automatically.

  • One can opt out of the Phased Update process by adding the following to the configuration file /etc/apt/apt.conf:

    Update-Manager::Never-Include-Phased-Updates “True”;

Here a one-liner to print all packages with the Phased-Update-Percentage tag:

apt-cache show ".*"|sed -r '/^Package:/h;/^Phased-Update-Percentage:/{H;x;s/\n/\n\t/;p};d'
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