Not sure if this is the right place to do so, but based on forum title I think this is the most suited place.
Afew days ago, I posted a screenshot here asking for help
After selecting Download & Install Immediately on "When there are security updates: ", and restart the GUI, the option is greyed out and not changable.
On the thread, Aravisian had informed me that it is a very old bug that was not fixed on Ubuntu end, and assured me that now updates are done automatically.
I decided to look up more into unattended-upgrades as I want to learn how to customize it to update automatically on every shutdown (still havent figured that out, but thats a different topic)
Extremely unexpectedly, seems like unattended upgrades is not installed on my freshly installed, and updated zorinOS.
After installing it, the GUI is now fixed, with "When there are security updates: " being selectable and modifiable, even after closing and opening, and after reboots.
This is pretty shocking to me, because if unattended-upgrades is not installed, then theoretically, any form of automatic updates should not be working at all.
Maybe there's some stuffs that I'm missing out? I have no idea, but I do feel a need to share this finding. The same has happened on ZorinOS 15.3 Lite too.
This is because upgrades will only occur if there are upgrades available. If you have automatic upgrading set up - then it will occur as soon as they are available, not after every shutdown.
Unattended Upgrades applies to any and all upgradable packages, not just Security ones.
Others prefer it to be disabled in order to reduce CPU usage, background activity, network activity and so on.
On Zorin OS, the default Software Updater regularly checks for updates / upgrades and notifies the user of any available packages.
This allows the user to
See what is available
Choose what is upgraded and what is not
Be motivated to view the changelogs
Keep track of what is being upgraded and how often this occurs
There are good reasons to not have it enabled by default. There is a reason why some choose to migrate to Linux from Microsoft and Automatic Updates doing who-knows-what in the background is one of the biggest reason.
Why it does not come Installed: Because Zorin OS prefers Gnome-Updater for this function and I personally, agree with you on this. I do not like automatic upgrading to occur, as I like to be informed of what upgrades are available and what the changes are.
But the aforementioned bug in Gnome-Updater is aggravating, as you have already experienced. The unattended-Upgrades package does a better job in My Opinion but it is not without bugs, either: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/unattended-upgrades/+bug/1887655
If this is true, I actually don't mind it. I've tried fresh installing ZorinOS and Xubuntu on a vm, select the option to download and install security updats automatically (which on ZorinOS, will cause the bug to mention as we have discussed before), left the VM running for 1-2 hours, and after I restart (shutdown and turn on), all the key security packages such as Firefox and Zorin/Ubuntu Base are not installed.
I personally prefer manual updating, however, I'm planning to install ZorinOS on my non-tech-savy cousin's laptop, who probably do not understand and care about security in first place. This frustrates me alot for now, because if these essential updates are not done, I feel I am threatening his laptop's security, making it not much different from using a Windows 7 system. However its for a different topic.
Based on what I interpret from this, the software & update GUI is not compatible with gnome-updater. Perhaps this GUI should not be used, and a different GUI may be a better idea? Though from what I do know, ZorinOS only consist of two devs, and any additional work such as this may put too much burden on them.
