GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 764992
Installation and uninstallation history
Last modified: 2018-01-24 17:05:09 UTC
I much prefer GNOME Software to the Ubuntu Software Center (I am running Ubuntu GNOME and USC is being replaced with GS), however I believe that there is one thing lacking in GS which is present in USC, the installation and uninstallation history. That is, the history of all packaged which have been installed and uninstalled, I believe that this is a very important feature for any software center like application to have and GS users would benefit from it. I initially filed a report here but thought I should also do so upstream: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-software/+bug/1569857
We're already pretty close on this one, I think. Looks like back in 2013, Bug #707689 added the backend support and Bug #707329 implemented the history dialog. Currently you can see the history for individual applications, if they were installed/updated via GNOME Software, by navigating to the app's page and scrolling down to the History button. But I think OP here was more hoping for a chronological overview of all transactions? That would make this feature request similar to Bug #744376, which requested a History tab at the top of GNOME Software. A tab at the top might not be necessary, since the average user doesn't need to read or revert history very often. But sometimes updates and new packages introduce bugs, and a chronological overview would make it easier to figure out what caused the bug. You get this level of detailed history from Synaptic on Ubuntu and Yumex-dnf on Fedora, but neither of those have the quite pleasant UI, screenshots, or user reviews that GNOME Software does. Also, Software's packagekit history is incompatible with the transaction histories of apt or dnf, which means the user might be better off only ever using one package manager or the other. Another problem with adding a history overview is that GNOME Software focuses on applications, and deliberately omits libraries and under-the-hood details. So the use case of trying to track down which updates or new installations introduced a bug would be hampered -- if the bug were in GTK, for example, you wouldn't see it listed anywhere in the history under the current design. I personally like the idea of this feature request, but I'm not so sure what could or should be done about it.
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