Suggestion: make it harder to do a full system update using the GUI

[soundofthunder]

@Aragorn

rarely-ever asked questions that the company’s marketing and PR departments would be all too happy to answer because they like patting themselves on the back.

Yessum… SOB!

@BG405

viaduct

Vi a ?
Vi not a penguint?!

@BG405

In our case, it’s a pity mdd didn’t go down too well, because that was FAR from being dishonest; quite the opposite, in fact.

@Aragorn

the hateful Redditters and the Arch-btw’ers deliberately sabotaged that attempt

It was clear that some of them had an agenda (at least in my mind); others just blindly followed (as they tend to do).

[Teo]

@BG405

In our case, it’s a pity mdd didn’t go down too well

[2025-05-16T18:57:36] ERROR submitting telemetry: 404 Client Error: Not Found for url: https://metrics-api.manjaro.org/send

Indeed. Especially since it is in the repos now ( @philm maybe remove it since it is obsolete and broken), but the server is down. What was the point to develop something only to use it for a month or so… one of the great mysteries of the manjaro management
If it was me i would leave it and put it in the announcement topic template near the news and advertisement. Maybe someone would have donated, at least the forum members. Yes, a skewed statistic but better than nothing.

[tracyanne]

@Phemisters

The number of users voting is probably (hopefully!) very small compared to the total number of users.

I can confirm that only 50% of Manjaro users in my household vote in the Update Poll.

… and all of them use the GUI (pamac-manager) for updating, and experience no problems with it.

[owburp]

When I first began using Manjaro, I used pamac-gui to do all updates – major system updates as well as the miscellaneous ones that came in between the major ones. Some were easy but many caused major problems for me. So I learned how to logout and use tty and pacman for the system updates (I generally use pamac-gui for the one or two miscellaneous updates); haven’t had any problems at all since.

But here’s a question about the Update Poll – if I update multiple PCs here, do I respond to the poll for EACH PC or do I respond only once for all of them in total?

[ben75]

You can reply once per username on the forum. You would have to reply once for all of your PCs.

[tracyanne]

@owburp

But you are allowed only 1 username, or account, on the Forum, so once for all your PCs.

Do them all, then reply. If any of them had a problem note that as the update response.

[owburp]

Yep, that’s what I’ve been doing. The discussion above about the polling made me think that answering once for multiple updates would skew the percentage. It’s like, if I were updating 10 PCs with no problems and two other people updated their single PCs but DID have a problem, I would be voting once for success while the other two voted each for failures that would be 30% success rate showing in the poll. But if I voted once PER PC, it would be 10 successes vs the 2 failures resulting in quite a different percentage for success.

@tracyanne That makes sense too!!

[tracyanne]

@owburp

@tracyanne That makes sense too!!

in effect there’s a 1 in how ever many PCs response rate, at your installation.

[soundofthunder]

@owburp

if I voted once PER PC, it would be 10 successes vs the 2 failures resulting in quite a different percentage for success

In your situation I dare say an overall metric would suffice – 10 successes vs. 2 failures is still a positive result where statistics are concerned. The ratio suggests 83.33333% success which indicates (to me) that the other 16.66666% failure might have been attributable to other/unknown factors; poor maintenance, for example.

[owburp]

@soundofthunder

10 successes vs. 2 failures is still a positive result where statistics are concerned. The ratio suggests 83.33333% success

If, however, I follow the rule of 1 username = 1 vote (no matter how many PCs I updated), then the poll would show 1 success vs 2 failures – 33% success, not 83%.

[soundofthunder]

@owburp

If, however, I follow the rule of 1 username = 1 vote (no matter how many PCs I updated), then the poll would show 1 success vs 2 failures – 33% success, not 83%.

No, because you’re making a purely representative vote of your experience, which is still positive overall.

By comparison, if you made 10 posts suggesting “I had no issues” and another 2 posts suggesting “I had some issues”, what should anyone summise from that? The success rate was higher than the failure rate.

That is all.

[scotty65]

@owburp

But here’s a question about the Update Poll – if I update multiple PCs here, do I respond to the poll for EACH PC or do I respond only once for all of them in total?

The sensible thing would be to treat all PCs as one. If they all update without any issues, then you should vote “No Issues” on the poll. If you encounter any issues on any of the PCs, then you should vote that you encountered an issue, and then post details of that issue (or those issues if more than one) and, if applicable, how they were solved, in the Updates thread. That will help other Manjaro users who may encounter similar issues.

Edit: Note that, if you encounter an issue after you have voted in the poll, you can change your vote by clicking the < VOTE button underneath the poll.

If the issues are of the type that require creation of a separate support topic, new support topics should be created. The output of inxi -zv8 of the PC the topic is in relation to should also be included so that the helpers here do not assume that the machine specs are identical to any that you may have listed in your profile or in previous topics you may have posted.

[Pille]

@Aragorn

Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that a company’s FAQ also never actually contains any frequently asked questions,

It’s a bit different for our clients. We do have most of the FAQ documented well. But most of the customers contact helpdesk anyhow because they don’t want to spend time on searching solutions, because it’s not their core job. They expect support from IT to do their work.
Analytics showed that only around 5-10% of all customers are using our self-service KB.

And they do this even if the waiting time on the line in peak hours is sometimes longer than a simple search by themselves.

[tracyanne]

@Pille

And they do this even if the waiting time on the line in peak hours is sometimes longer than a simple search by themselves.

I believe this is because most people want to deal with an actual person.

[ehhen]

@scotty65

Edit: Note that, if you encounter an issue after you have voted in the poll, you can change your vote by clicking the < VOTE button underneath the poll.

important. I also correct my opinion when I encounter a noticeable problem. Very rarely. I don’t mind a slight scratch.

It would be nice if there was a note on the right side of the vote that said, “If your situation changes, please correct your vote at any time.”

I say all of this, but it would be a talisman to express how I actually feel. I wish there were reliable statistics. It’s really a shame. >>Manjaro Data Donor

[tracyanne]

@ehhen

I wish there were reliable statistics.

It would be nice.

[Pille]

@tracyanne

I believe this is because most people want to deal with an actual person.

Speaking to lots of our clients did not confirm your assumption. They simply are under the impression that the IT is here for solving their problems and not doing it on their own.

[Ben]

@tracyanne

I believe this is because most people want to deal with an actual person.

Hmmm I know where you’re coming from, but I don’t agree. After dealing with various kinds of customer service around here… there’s’ a mix, but a very definite ongoing trend.

‘Actual Person’ customer service folks are also trained up and generally try to run along the lines of their very tight scripting, and are often not able to do more - but with some organisations I found that a machine can end up wasting 5 minutes of your time but actually end up connecting you to the correct depeartment (rather than in the past where you’d have to dial up a dozen extensions to get there)… but they can be more annoying because you THINK they are human, so you can be more angry when they piss you off by slicking rigidly to their scripts.

I would suggest that the real problem is that we’re too damn old - we come from an era where only 99 people in town had a mobile phone, so if you call for service, you might actually get someone.

Now that there are 99 million, it’s just never going to work… so the system must do it’s best to deal with anything it can manage and possibly also to help filter out those people who mostly called not so much because they needed service, but because they actually just wanted to call someone for a chat 'cos they were lonely and just wanted a human touch

@Pille

And they do this even if the waiting time on the line in peak hours is sometimes longer than a simple search by themselves.

And this final sentence kinda nailed that for me… I have a few people buying stuff from me who only pay cash, and that means I have to meet them to give them their stuff, then if they don’t have the right change - mess about taking their cash and giving them change. I have several other people who order things, but need several prompts to remind them later on to make their payments…

Social contact is sometimes magic, but often it is sorely over-rated.

[tracyanne]

@Pille

Speaking to lots of our clients did not confirm your assumption.

No it comes from a long experience working in mostly IT. from working in and managing HelpDesk, Systems Management in the days when one went site to site installing the new Software (and often worked 24 or 36 hours straight), Software Development with Client input, and running my own small business.

[tracyanne]

@Ben

‘Actual Person’ customer service are mostly restricted to a very tight vocabulary and script and are not a huge improvement - but they can be more annoying because you THINK they are human, so you can be more angry when they piss you off.

I know, I’ve written code for such systems. Getting both the database loaded with correct responses and the smarts into the code, so that zero knowledge ‘Help Desk’ personnel can assist a caller is a Female Dog.