On 29/04/12 22:54, alan c wrote: > On 29/04/12 21:04, Alan Bell wrote: >> it says "do you want to upgrade?" and you can say yes or no to it. >> Clearly "yes" is the preferred option, but why shouldn't we encourage >> people to upgrade to new cool stuff that will make their experience >> better (which is the aim of it, sometimes that doesn't work out so >> well)? > > Why? because some regular users like my 80+ year old friend (sadly now > no longer with us) easily confuse an up'date' with an up'grade'. > Whereas updates are usually fairly safe, upgrades are not. Upgrade and > update sound similar and seem similar. They appear even in the same > window in the same situation. > > Some users are ordinary non technical people. Update or upgrade is all > the same to them. One can consider that such ordinary human beings > are, or are not, capable of using the first user account to have > access to the admin level. My 92 year old relative, who only does > online shopping and is closely administered by tech family members if > changes are needed has a restricted account, but it is not appropriate > for an independent active 84 year old who goes to windows club every > week and uses Windows (was XP) routinely, and can and does expect to > install stuff from say the ubuntu software centre when he needs to in > his dual boot laptop. > > There are strong moves to make Ubuntu good for a vast user base, but > many existing users are diy users like my 80+ friend, and in terms of > a discussion list like this one, they are novices and do not know > what, say, a partition is, like most Windows users don't. > > It is such users that will get tripped up by Upgrade vs Update. This > is especially because the enthusiasm of our community and devs to > encourage upgrades is aimed at the traditional enthusiast linux based > os user, not the less competent joe or jane. Version upgrades are > notified by default and the reason a health warning would be > appropriate is because the least technical user is *likely* to fall > for it, like my friend.
Alan, that's the best explanation I've seen so far of why it's important to highlight the difference between "update" and "upgrade". You should open a bug and explain it this way. Example wordings would be useful, e.g.: Update = minor updates to existing software, no big changes. Upgrade = major upgrade of the whole system, including new software versions, possibly significant changes in UI, needs a lot more time to do, etc. If worded correctly, it could act as a warning that it's an operation that takes time but also be an opportunity to highlight the new stuff that people may be interested in: get a few screenshots in, explain changes, a bit like what the installer does but before people actually commit to the upgrade. Cheers, Bruno -- [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
