Package: gnome-software Severity: wishlist Some users do not actually benefit from gnome-software/packagekit, and occasionally suffer as a result of it's presence.
A case in point is an elderly relative, who despite encouragement has never found a reason to install a new package for themselves, so relies on me to do upgrades, or suggest new packages. However, occasionally they get bitten by what looks like #909804, where the machine can become unresponsive immediately after boot or resume. Even without that, if one is never going to use the functionality, the background downloads are a waste of resources on both the local machine, and our mirror network. That being the case, I think it might be useful to add something to the README describing the best way to prevent gnome-software from autostarting. An internet search turns up various suggestions (and reveals that I'm clearly not alone in wanting a good answer to this question), the best of which seems to be here: https://www.reddit.com/r/gnome/comments/gn8rs4/how_to_disable_gnome_software_autostart/ =-=-=-=- All this can be done by pasting these lines into terminal: mkdir -pv ~/.config/autostart && cp /etc/xdg/autostart/gnome-software-service.desktop ~/.config/autostart/ echo "X-GNOME-Autostart-enabled=false" >> ~/.config/autostart/gnome-software-service.desktop dconf write /org/gnome/desktop/search-providers/disabled "['org.gnome.Software.desktop']" If you want to also disable Gnome Software automatic updates: dconf write /org/gnome/software/allow-updates false dconf write /org/gnome/software/download-updates false These steps do not neuter Software completely - you can still use it to install/remove apps. =-=-=-=- I think preserving the ability to use gnome-software (as in this suggestion) is quite useful for many users, so that should definitely be one of the options offered. I'm guessing that the alternative solution that I've seen (masking the packagekit service) would not allow gnome-software to continue working. If I'm wrong about that, that might instead be the right thing to suggest. For people who are never going to want to install software via the GUI, it would be easier if it were possible to do e.g. `apt remove gnome-software`. This currently doesn't do what one wants, as the dependency from gnome-core to gnome-software means that one ends up removing much of gnome along with gnome-software. Would it be possible to use a Recommends: there instead, to enable this? Cheers, Phil.
