[Hoary] Update-manager notification : how does it work ?

[Vincent Trouilliez]

I am wondering something.

If I start the update-manager by hand (System menu), several times a
day, and I hit the "reload" button, there almost alwyas some new package
to update. But, there is no icon in the notification area in the top
panel. So I wonder :

1) How often does the applet poll the Ubuntu server for available
updates ?

2) Assuming it polls very often, then why doesn't it show the icons as
soon as packages are available

3) Could it be that I should NOT run the update maanger by hand, and
should wait for the icon to show up. That is, maybe it is not a good
thing to update all the time by hand. Maybe it can break my system if I
download a package that relies on another package which is not yet
available when I run the update manager ? That is, the update-manager
will only show the icon, when all the updates packages are a
consistent/coherent set, and that it is safe to install everything ?

Other than that, todays update modified the "System" menu. The clashing
bright yellow "About Ubuntu" entry is gone. Now the whole menu looks
much better, and smaller/cleaner as well, not to mention the cute "About
Gnome" entry with the Gnome foot. System menu now looks great, almost
perfect. Just need to modifiy slightly the "log out" icon. That red
arrow looks too sharp, and bit a dark as well. Any alternatives
available off the shelf we could use ? Or maybe some artist on this list
could rework the icon ? :o)


--
Vince