Linux Mint is considering measures to keep users up-to-date, including Windows 10-style forced updates.
Linux Mint is a popular, community-driven distribution (distro) based on Ubuntu. Unfortunately, like users of other operating systems (OS), many Linux Mint users are slow to update, both applications and the OS itself.
In a blog post detailing the problem, the Linux Mint teams notes that only 30% of users updated to the latest version of their web browser in less than a week. Similarly, while acknowledging it is hard to get an exact figure, between 5% and 30% of users are running Linux 17.x.
0% of users should run Linux Mint 17.x! Anything above is not good, whether it’s 5% or 30%.
Linux Mint 17.x reached EOL (End-Of-Life) in April 2019. In other words it stopped receiving security updates for almost 2 years now!
In another blog post, posted Sunday, the Linux Mint team discusses some of the options on the table, including forced updates.
In some cases the Update Manager will be able to remind you to apply updates. In a few of them it might even insist. We don’t want it to be dumb and get in your way though. It’s here to help. If you are handling things your way, it will detect smart patterns and usages. It will also be configurable and let you change the way it’s set up.
It remains to be seen how the community will respond. Forced updates have been one of Windows 10’s most unpopular features. The Linux Mint team may be playing with fire venturing into forced update territory.