Blue box says this:
Information!
Operating system Rocky Linux has been upgraded to version 9.5. Release notes
Button: [Update Detected Operating System]
What exactly does this mean? What will clicking that button do?
The Release Notes link takes you to a Rocky Linux page that says:
You can upgrade from Rocky Linux 9.x to Rocky Linux 9.5 by running
sudo dnf -y upgrade
perhaps that is what clicking the button will do but it isn’t obvious.
This machine uses a Google Cloud optimized version of Rocky 9.4 so I am reluctant to blindly upgrade.
I’m on 9.5, no issue updating to it. Any update in the v9 range is fine, done it numerous times.
I have no idea what Google Cloud optimized means.
If its cloud based you should be able to create a snapshot if your that worried.
The message means exactly what it says: “Operating system Rocky Linux has been upgraded to version 9.5.”
I don’t know how it could possibly be made more clear. And, it clearly says it is “information”. It’s not a warning, it’s not an error. It’s just telling you that the version of your OS has changed. Clicking the button will update the OS that Webmin has detected, so it’ll stop telling you the OS has changed. It does not upgrade the OS or run dnf, because that has already happened.
When you update all packages regularly using your system package manager (dnf in the case of any EL, like Rocky), it will occasionally upgrade to a new minor release. That’s normal, expected, and good. Webmin is telling you you’re on a new minor version. That’s it.
Sorry, that may be true but it is far from obvious. My Webmin dashboard currently says this:
Operating system Rocky Linux 9.4
Webmin version 2.202 Authentic theme version 21.20.7
Time on system Monday, February 17, 2025 4:59 PM
Kernel and CPU Linux 5.14.0-503.19.1.el9_5.cloud.1.0.x86_64 on x86_64
“Information” suggest to me that Webmin is informing me that Rocky has a new version 9.5 but that doesn’t mean my system was already and automatically upgraded. Sounds like an option to me especially when there is a button that says: “Update Detected Operating System” . That clearly implies that clicking it will cause an update. What is the point of the button otherwise?
Webmin thought you should know your OS version changed, so it told you. And, it gave you a button to say, basically, “OK, I see it changed.” At that point, Webmin is happy…it knows you know that your OS has changed. Whether Webmin should even tell you that, I guess is up for debate.
It should certainly tell you when the major version changes, because that may require you to make configuration changes in Webmin if things about the system have changed (such as going from initscripts to systemd as happen a few years ago) but hopefully you’d know about that kind of change already, since a simple dnf update will not perform a major version upgrade under any circumstances (at least not without doing something dangerous to force it to do so).
Webmin needs to know the OS and version when it installs so it picks the right configuration files to suit your OS. It probably doesn’t matter much to Webmin when the minor version changes, since all of our supported OSes use something like semantic versions and any point upgrades will be compatible with all other point upgrades in the series (e.g. Rocky 9.5 is compatible with 9.4 and Ubuntu 24.04.2 is compatible with 24.04.3, or whatever).
Anyway, if you have suggestions for how the language ought to change to make it clear that the following things are true:
The OS has already upgraded. We’re not offering to perform an upgrade. It’s already done. Nothing to be done about upgrading.
Webmin can be told to stop telling you about it and update the OS is believes it’s running on.
This is not a warning, an error, or any indication that something has gone wrong or that you need to drop everything and address it. It’s just information that Webmin thought you should know, maybe you want to read the change log to be sure nothing that effects you has changed.
You know what, the more I think about it, the more obvious the solution is to just get rid of the danged message entirely.
@Ilia@Jamie can we just get rid of this OS version change message when it’s a minor version change? e.g. from 9.4 to 9.5 on EL systems or from 24.04.1 to 24.04.2 for Ubuntu, just update it and shut up about it. There is nothing for the user to do in this situation, and after Ilia has iterated on the message several times, it’s clear there is no way to make it not upsetting, or at least disruptive, for users.
If there’s only one sensible answer to a question, we simply shouldn’t ask the question and just do the only sensible thing. There is no sensible thing to do but update the detected OS, so let’s just do that and stop pestering users about it. If you think we need a link to release notes or change logs or whatever, that can be linked from the version in the system information or something. We don’t need to make a big deal out of a small thing.
Yes, me neither, and I don’t think we should change it substantially.
It does, because in English, “has been upgraded” directly implies a direct and indisputable connection to the present.
No, we should not get rid of it.
If one or two users struggle to interpret something, that doesn’t mean we should remove it—it might just need improvement.
It’s not a question—it’s a notification to let users know that their OS has been upgraded and that there are some changes, which might be interesting to know of. We even provide a distinctive link to Release notes. This feature is very useful for many users, including me. If someone doesn’t want it, they can just click away.
Yes, agreed. And I believe that this is exactly what needs to change—the button’s text clearly requires improvement. In the next Webmin release, it will be displayed as:
For English? I’d say “Dismiss Notification” because that is what you are doing. “Confirm” could be construed as the user still having some sort of choice about the changes. I’ve seen simpler instructions cause problems here.
Yet “acknowledge” sounds a bit too vague. And, I think, we shouldn’t treat our users like children. Everyone makes hundreds of choices every day, and since these updates only occur a couple of times a year, no one will mind making one extra choice!
There is no choice here, though. There is no reasonable answer other than “yes”. So, it’s stupid to ask for an answer of the user. We’re not providing any service to the user here by asking for confirmation. We should just update the detected version (as long as it’s a minor version change).
I explained why I believe it should be shown—by including a link to the release notes with details for the user’s benefit—and I also fixed the confusing button message. But I don’t believe it should be completely removed.
