Bug 444839

Summary: Allow Discover to skip checking for updates on filtered Flatpak packages
Product: [Applications] Discover Reporter: yizel7
Component: Flatpak BackendAssignee: Dan Leinir Turthra Jensen <leinir>
Status: RESOLVED INTENTIONAL    
Severity: wishlist CC: aleixpol, jgrulich, nate
Priority: NOR    
Version First Reported In: 5.23.2   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: Other   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description yizel7 2021-11-02 17:12:00 UTC
Currently every single flatpak package installed from flathub is checked for updates. It would be nice for users to have the option to filter out packages they do not want to constantly check for updates. Some packages are updated sometimes 2 or 3 times a day. It is a good thing to be updated to the latest, but it is also annoying to have the Discover notification that there is yet another update when you just updated that morning and for the same package.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE
1. Install flatpaks that are updated very-fast (emulators like yuzu or RPCS3)
2. Turn off your computer
3. Wait a couple hours, possibly half a day
4. There will be an update for these constantly updated packages

OBSERVED RESULT
There will most likely be an update for very-fast updated packages.

EXPECTED RESULT
If we have specific packages filtered from update checking then either they would show the last update available before they were filtered out. Or they would not show in Discover updates at all.

SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS
OS: Arch Linux x86_64
Kernel: 5.14.15-arch1-1
(available in About System)
KDE Plasma Version: 5.23.2
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.87.0
Qt Version: 5.15.2
Graphics Platform: X11

Dolphin flatpak version: 21.08.2
Flatpak version: flatpak 1.12.2-1
Flatseal version: 1.7.4
Comment 1 Nate Graham 2021-11-08 21:48:49 UTC
Hmm, unsure. This seems pretty like a pretty niche thing specific to people who want to install updates the moment they become available. You can just not do that and let them pile up a bit, installing them on a schedule of your choice.
Comment 2 yizel7 2021-11-09 03:17:31 UTC
(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #1)
> Hmm, unsure. This seems pretty like a pretty niche thing specific to people
> who want to install updates the moment they become available. You can just
> not do that and let them pile up a bit, installing them on a schedule of
> your choice.

It's more about the Discover Update notification showing all the time. I currently have it set to "show when relevant". Due to these emulators it is showing all the time. This made me change the Discover Notification update to "hidden" because I didn't want to see it all the time. But now say Firefox has an update, I wouldn't know unless I go out of my way to check if there are updates. This is why it would be nice to be able to filter certain flatpaks from notifying unless I explicitly check myself. In this case, giving the user a choice.

If you still disagree with the above reasoning, I am willing to concede and this ticket can be closed.
Comment 3 Nate Graham 2021-11-09 03:21:13 UTC
Let's let Aleix decide. :)
Comment 4 Aleix Pol 2021-11-10 01:35:13 UTC
I understand it can be annoying, I'm not sure what's a good way to decide that an app is being annoying though. In fact, maybe a good way forward here would be to go tell the developers to only release new versions when they have something to show.

We can check when the applications deploy dir changed last, which I understand it would tell us when we last changed (flatpak_installed_ref_get_deploy_dir), but still how do we know it's a pointless update? It could well be that 2h after releasing, firefox did a patch update because they found a security bug and you surely would want the updates there.

I'd suggest to either:
- contact the packagers.
- install the stable branch of the apps that annoy you.
- enable unattended updates. We could improve a bit the behaviour on unattended updates, if you decide to go that route we can sure have a discussion, as you might still be getting some notifications.
Comment 5 Nate Graham 2021-11-10 15:56:33 UTC
I agree. :)
Comment 6 yizel7 2021-11-10 17:52:46 UTC
(In reply to Aleix Pol from comment #4)
> - enable unattended updates. We could improve a bit the behaviour on
> unattended updates, if you decide to go that route we can sure have a
> discussion, as you might still be getting some notifications.

I was not aware unattended updates was a thing for Flatpaks. Is this a Discover setting? I don't see an option for it with flatpak --help