bug#22740: Freshness check blocks upgrading

[Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name>]

On Fri, Feb 19, 2016 at 06:12:09PM +0100, Andreas Enge wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> when upgrading packages, there is a check for new GNU releases.
> In the presence of network problems preventing to reach the corresponding
> servers, the command "guix package -u" hangs indefinitely.
> 
> It would be nice to add a (short) time-out to the procedure looking
> for updates, or better yet, to add a command line flag to turn it off:
> Even when the servers are reachable, checking for new versions takes
> a considerable amount of time that can be saved in many circumstances.
> 
> Personally, I would not even mind turning this feature off completely;
> I think we update packages sufficiently often and the message is rather
> distracting.

It does seem out of place while upgrading. It could be considered
extraneous to the features of `guix refresh`.

> 
> Andreas
> 
> 
> 
>