12 Step Program for Ubuntu Update-Manager Addicts


Hi, my name is Chris.

I am Ubuntu update-manager addict.

I began innocently enough, sometime back in Febuary, I ran ‘update-manager -d‘ to get a peek at Unbuntu Hardy Heron. Since that time I have been unable to resist the little orange “Updates Available” icon. Checking two or three times a day for improved progams, bug fixes, and new features. Swearing off updates after each bad dependency problem, only to run update again in hopes it will get fixed this time.

My family is tired of the home PCs being tied up running update-manager all the time and I’m not getting much done on my laptop while it’s burning up bandwidth updating the repository indexes. It’s time for an intervention.

I know I can’t break this habit alone, so I’m thinking of starting a 12 step program. I know there are others out there with the same problem so maybe a support group will help, all we have to do is:

  1. Admit we are powerless over update-manager — that our base install has become unmanageable.
  2. Believe that a Distribution version greater than ours can restore us to sanity.
  3. Make a decision to turn our laptops and our lives over to the care of Ubuntu as we understand It.
  4. Make a searching and fearless ‘dpkg -l‘ inventory of our installed packages.
  5. Admitted to Ubuntu Forums, to ourselves, and to another linux user the exact nature of our addiction.
  6. Be entirely ready to have the official release of Ubuntu to remove all these defects from our laptops.
  7. Humbly asked It to remove our old kernels.
  8. Make a list of all packages we have harmed, and be willing to reconfigure them all.
  9. Make direct updates to such packages wherever possible, except when doing so would cause dependency problem for them or other packages.
  10. Continued to take dpkg inventories and when we are misconfigured, promptly running ‘dpkg –configure -a‘.
  11. Seek through googling and meditation on the wiki to improve our use of Ubuntu as we understand It, searching only for knowledge of It’s usefulness to us and the power to carry that out.
  12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we will carry this message to other geeks, and practice these principles on all our computers.

I not sure where or when the meetings will be. Have you seen the new version of the Ekiga VoIP in the latest updates? Maybe the meetings can be over voice chat. Just run ‘update-manager -d’ to get the latest version . . . Doh!

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