"System Patches" package question
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Hi,
Just installed the "System Patches" package and immediately read "After upgrading, do not revert a patch if the changes from the patch were included in the upgrade. This will remove the changes"
So what does that actually mean? If I install a "patch A" running on firmware X, then later upgrade to firmware Y, will I then have to keep "patch A" in the list forever? If that patch has been included in the currently installed firmware, should it then really still be shown as an installed patch?
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No, it means if firmware Y includes patch A you can just delete it without doing anything else.
If it's a part of the new firmware it is not an "installed" patch it's a part of the base system, so nobody needs to do anything to get it.
The problem is if you upgrade to firmware Y which includes patch A when you look at the patches list it shows the patch is applied (correctly, because it's a part of the current system!) but people were clicking "revert" after upgrade thinking they had to "uninstall" the patch, thus actually removing the fix from their systems and actually breaking them again.
tl;dr you're overthinking it. Just delete the patch without touching anything else after upgrade if the new firmware includes that patch.
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@jimp said in "System Patches" package question:
it shows the patch is applied (correctly, because it's a part of the current system!) but people were clicking "revert" after upgrade thinking they had to "uninstall" the patch
This sounds a bit awkward? So, if I don't manually remove this, for how long will it be in that list? IMHO it would make sense to remove the patch-listing automatically when upgrading to a firmware containing it. Perhaps tricky, but would mitigate the risk of user error as the risk is not negligible if it actually is possible to revert functionality which is part of the base system...
On top of added user-friendliness, you would also clearly see what is in addition to the currently installed firmware (not part of it).
Just my thoughts...
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Manually defined patches are never removed automatically.
There is a separate "Recommended Patches" area that is managed automatically and those come and go as needed (and are generally empty on a fresh new release until we add more).
Trying to figure out what patches someone manually added and trying to remove them automatically would be a coding nightmare and a POLA violation.
If you manually add it, you have to manually remove it. There isn't any way for the package to know your intentions there.
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@jimp said in "System Patches" package question:
Trying to figure out what patches someone manually added and trying to remove them automatically would be a coding nightmare and a POLA violation.
Agreed. I will test this out and get the feel for it. I was mainly thinking of the recommended packages, and if one of them were in the firmware upgraded to - then it would no longer be in the list, right? What would "POLA" stand for?
Would there be a way to get notified that there is a new recommended patch to consider installing?
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POLA is "policy of least astonishment" -- basically meaning don't do things that would be shockingly unexpected to the user.
The Recommended Patches list is filtered by version, so only the patches relevant to the current version are displayed by the package. You won't see anything in that list that isn't relevant to the versions you're running, but not every patch there will be necessary for everyone. For example, some may be hardware specific and won't be needed for others, or may be in features you don't use.
There isn't a notification method for new patches, they do come along with updates to the System Patches package, but not every update would necessarily have new patches for each version.
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@jimp Perfect, thanks! :)
