[Bug 1998947] Re: restore reboot notification so that users are notified after unattended-upgrades

[Robie Basak]

> Currently, update-notifier will display the notification even if
update-manager's previous notification is still open.

To expand on this, I believe that currently both unattended-upgrades and
update-manager run by default on Desktop. I also think it must be fairly
common for users to leave their systems for periods of time while they
remain logged in, especially for example if a user sets off updates
through update-manager before leaving for a break. Therefore, this
proposed update will result in two reboot prompts appearing on the
screen at once (one from update-notifier and one from update-manager).
This seems like a significant UX regression to me that could be expected
to affect a wide set of users, while providing relatively little benefit
for the majority of users, so doesn't seem acceptable for SRU as-is.

Therefore I'm rejecting this upload from the queue. If after discussion
you are able to persuade the SRU team otherwise, then we can accept
directly from the rejected queue.

It also seems like this would be a UX regression between Lunar and
Mantic given this change is already uploaded into Mantic, so I'll file a
bug for that.

> The main rationale for this is that we needed to enable this for a
special jammy-based customer and we do not want this functionality to
regress whenever a new update-notifier is released.

I suggest using a recipe build against the git-ubuntu branch to keep a
PPA updated. This technique can often work with no intervention required
to maintain a patched local package, even merging in security updates -
though it would still need monitoring and the occasional merge conflict
resolving manually.

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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1998947

Title:
  restore reboot notification so that users are notified after
  unattended-upgrades

Status in update-notifier package in Ubuntu:
  Fix Released
Status in update-notifier source package in Jammy:
  In Progress
Status in update-notifier source package in Lunar:
  In Progress

Bug description:
  [Impact]

  There is not currently a user-friendly way to be notified that a
  reboot is required as a result of a package that was upgraded during
  unattended-upgrades. The reboot notification in update-notifier that
  was removed long ago would serve this purpose.

  The main rationale for this is that we needed to enable this for a
  special jammy-based customer and we do not want this functionality to
  regress whenever a new update-notifier is released. We think that this
  change will benefit all Ubuntu users. It does change the behavior, but
  we think it's a change that is acceptable.

  We're open to discussion with the SRU team about this.

  [Test Plan]

  1. Install update-notifier from jammy-proposed.
  2. Reboot
  3. Install a package, or install updates, so that /var/lib/dpkg/info is updated.
  4. If needed, touch /var/run/reboot-required (this might actually happen depending on what you install/update).
  5. Wait 3 hours for the reboot notification to appear.
  6. Click on the notification icon to show the option to reboot, and click on that.

  [Where problems could occur]

  Bringing back old code may reveal bugs in the old code that would have
  been found if it was maintained all this time. Besides that, if we saw
  regressions introduced by this it would likely be related to the
  monitoring of other files.

  [Other information]

  We are mainly interested in SRU'ing to Jammy because that's where the
  use case exists, but we can keep Lunar up-to-date as well.

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