[Bug 1908050] Re: Support post install enablement of OEM-enabled devices

[Iain Lane]

On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 01:02:56AM -0000, Brian Murray wrote:
> While the version of ubuntu-drivers-common in the release pocket for
> Ubuntu 20.04 LTS has code for "system_device_specific_metapackages" it
> seems that some users[1] have strange versions of ubuntu-drivers-common
> installed and are receiving Tracebacks with an attribute error. So it
> seems like the update-notifier SRU would have benefited from a versioned
> dependency on ubuntu-drivers-common.
> 
> [1]
> https://errors.ubuntu.com/problem/13cbbbaf8da4338aa930bf2b22960d807b38ae70

Some of these people are running derivatives which appear to be taking 
Ubuntu's SRUs directly but also modifying some packages - that seems a 
bit risky.

But not all of them.

I can see that this could maybe happen if update-notifier runs when 
you're in the middle of a release upgrade from bionic, if 
ubuntu-drivers-common gets updated first and then the old 
update-notifier runs before it itself gets updated. (side note: if that 
can happen, it seems undesirable - we don't want update-notifier running 
when there's other apt operations ongoing including release upgrading)

Do you think we should follow up with an update to set a version on this 
dep?

Cheers,

-- 
Iain Lane                                  [ iain at orangesquash.org.uk ]
Debian Developer                                   [ laney at debian.org ]
Ubuntu Developer                                   [ laney at ubuntu.com ]

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1908050

Title:
  Support post install enablement of OEM-enabled devices

Status in update-manager package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in update-notifier package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in update-manager source package in Focal:
  Fix Released
Status in update-notifier source package in Focal:
  Fix Released

Bug description:
  [ Description ]

  The Ubuntu installer (ubiquity), working together with ubuntu-drivers,
  will install an "OEM metapackage" for the platform being installed, if
  there is one which matches.

  This means that if Canonical has performed enablement for a device,
  users will receive the same experience if they purchase hardware with
  Ubuntu preinstalled or if it has another OS and they later install
  Ubuntu.

  However, if the hardware was enabled post-release and the user is
  offline when installing Ubuntu, the installer will not know that there
  is any enablement that it should install. Similarly if the enablement
  happens after Ubuntu has been installed. In these cases we need a way
  inside the installed session for the same enablement to be provided.

  We're adding the capability for update-manager to install these
  packages. They themselves install a sources.list.d snippet referring
  to an "OEM archive" specific to the device, so update-manager needs to
  know to update (as in `apt update`) and then upgrade (`apt upgrade`) a
  second time after installing oem-foo-meta from the Ubuntu archive.

  update-manager will be consuming a file provided by update-notifier to
  know if the device needs an oem metapackage or not.

  NOTE NOTE NOTE NOTE NOTE NOTE: The OEM metapackages are LTS only, so
  the intention is that this change is effectively a no-op on hirsute.
  Therefore we are proposing NOT to SRU to groovy, as there is no chance
  of a regression for groovy users.

  [ QA ]

  = On a certified device =

  1. Update the system to the latest without focal-proposed.
  2. Enable focal-proposed, and then only install update-manager/1:20.04.10.2 and update-notifier/3.192.30.4 from focal-proposed.
  3. Reboot the system, login the desktop and wait for a while.
  The notification will pop up and it will show "Improved hardware support" on the certified machines that has the OEM metapackage support.

  = On a non certified device =

  1. Update the system to the latest without focal-proposed.
  2. Enable focal-proposed, and then only install update-manager/1:20.04.10.2 and update-notifier/3.192.30.4 from focal-proposed.
  3. Reboot the system, login the desktop and wait for a while.
  The notification will pop up but it won't show "Improved hardware support" on non certified machines.

  [ What could go wrong ]

  In this update we rework transaction handling. If this is wrong, then
  the progress bar or terminal could stop working.

  If there's a bug in the way we install / update / upgrade the OEM
  metapackages then we could break installing any update.

  If we accidentally apply this logic to non OEM systems then we could
  break updating for everybody.

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