I've never seen any update notification mechanism ignore the major revisions and going only for what the user believes should be the last good known update. Any real world examples?
You can always turn of notifications. And since you don't seem to be interested in the latest and greatest, you could do what I'm doing in my setups. Check if there are any updates
manually:
- I have a list of the installed software and its installation date (see below). And a series of bookmarks in Firefox that match the installed software. Broken in categories, no more than 15 per category.
- Once or twice a month, I open all the bookmarks in tabs and check if there are any updates.
- I never install an update that's not at least a week old to let the potential last minute bug show up before I become a beta tester. More time for system level related software, including the ones for OSX itself, my computer's main OS.
- The above rule does not apply to VirtualBox and Firefox only. The former because I'm testing the latest and greatest, and the latter for security issues mainly.
- Since I am logged in as a standard user, I do not have installation rights. Log out, log on as admin, do the installations, re-log on as me. Usually I do a reboot of the whole system. Once a month is good for the soul.
That way I have
full control of the update process. Why? Because I have weird rules. And there is no way in the seven kingdoms that my rules would apply to another person, so, I just make my own update process. I can't possibly expect all of the software update mechanisms out there to read my mind...
For example I can skip an update if I don't like it. Or I can go back if something breaks. Or I can dodge a bullet if something is infected (think of the
Transmission booboo in Aug/2016). My computer, my rules, my responsibility. Yes, it may be a little bit more of a manual labor, but I've never regretted it.
Just an excerpt of my "InstalledSoftwareVersions.log", to give you an idea. I don't want to post the whole thing, it's about 1100 lines, but it definitely isn't that bad as it sounds. The whole update-checking of the system takes half the time than to do the actual installations:
Code: Select all
============================================================================
*** Last check: 2017-10-04 ***
*** Last check: 2017-09-11 ***
*** Last check: 2017-07-20 ***
*** Last check: 2017-07-15 ***
...
============================================================================
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Apps
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Blender 2.74 2015-03-31
2.76b 2015-11-03
2.77 2016-03-19
2.77a 2016-04-06
2.78a 2016-09-30
2.78b 2017-02-08
2.78c 2017-02-28
2.79 2017-09-12 <--
GIMP 2.8.10 2013-11-29
2.8.14 2015-01-02
2.8.16 2015-11-21
2.8.18 2016-07-14
2.8.20 2017-02-01
2.8.22 2017-05-11
GR dictionary 1.1.0 2010-01-24
Inkscape 0.91 2015-01-30
0.92 2017-01-01 <??
0.92.1 2017-02-13 <??
LibreGreek 20121220 2012-12-20 *
LibreOffice 4.3.7 2015-04-25
4.4.4 2015-06-30
5.0.4 2015-12-17
5.1.1 2016-03-03
5.1.2 2016-04-07
5.1.3 2016-05-12
5.1.4 2016-06-23
5.2.1 2016-09-08
5.2.2 2016-09-29
5.2.3 2016-11-03
5.2.4 2016-12-22
5.3.0 2017-01-28
5.3.1 2017-03-08
5.3.2 2017-04-06
5.3.3 2017-05-10
5.3.4 2017-06-17
5.4.1 2017-08-31
MoneyManagerEx 1.2.5 2016-01-25
1.2.6 2016-03-06
1.2.7 2016-07-07
1.3.1 2017-01-14
1.3.3 2017-03-04
...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fonts
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
DejaVu 2.35 2015-05-17
2.36 2016-07-14
2.37 2016-07-30
Droid 1.00 2009-01-09 Android < 4.x
FreeFont 20120503 2012-05-03 GNU
MyriadPro 2.062 2010-09-11
Noto 1.0.4 2014-09-12 Serif are 1.0.5
1.0.6 2015-09-28 Serif are 1.0.7
...
...
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Virtualization
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
VirtualBox 1.6.6 () 2008-09-02 No ExtPack *DOES NOT INSTALL*
2.0.12 (53697) 2009-10-09 No ExtPack *DOES NOT INSTALL*
2.1.4 (42893) 2009-02-16 No ExtPack *DOES NOT INSTALL*
2.2.4 (47978) 2009-05-29 No ExtPack
3.0.14 (58977) 2010-03-18 No ExtPack
3.1.8 (61349) 2010-03-25 No ExtPack
3.2.18 (89859) 2013-10-11 No ExtPack
3.2.20 (91540) 2014-01-10 No ExtPack
3.2.22 (92810) 2014-03-14 No ExtPack
3.2.26 (95036) 2014-07-15 * No ExtPack
4.0.20 (89853) 2013-10-11
4.0.22 (91544) 2014-01-10
4.0.24 (92803) 2014-03-14
4.0.26 (95035) 2014-07-15 *
4.1.28 (89849) 2013-10-11
...
Come to think of it, I'm due for a system update...