How to know if there are updates

General system Newbie
1

I dont know if someone has asked this specific question, but if you disable the notifier in EOS how do you know if you have any kind of update? Because ive seen that people disable it because they get maybe multiple updates everyday and they dont want to see it

2

There are updates every day.

The theory is that you don’t need a notifier. If you do updates daily or weekly you will always have updates.

3 Likes
3

Ive been an ubuntu user in the past and i know that there you can do “sudo apt-get update” and then use “sudo apt-get upgrade” and then reboot the system, but as i want a more “challenging” distro now, how would i do it here?

4

I have a simple conky that shows me the number of updates that are available. Unlike the notifier it doesn’t do anything but display :slight_smile: you can also run the command
checkupdates
this will display a list of the available updates

1 Like
5

if you don’t use any ‘extended repository’ you can just type:

sudo pacman -Syu

and this will update everything.

2 Likes
6

You just type yay

That will update all your repo and AUR packages as well as update your local databases.

2 Likes
7

checkupdates (in case its not installed on your system, it can be installed with yay pacman-contrib .)

2 Likes
8

All the points made here so far are completely valid - it is entirely up to you, and your ‘need to know’ combined with your ‘distractability’.

Approaches like “It’s Saturday morning, I’m too old for cartoons, so I’ll run updates now” work well - and then there are those like myself who keep running track of the situation at all times. I am not bothered by a quietly and calmly smooth scrolling display of the upcoming updates (both pacman and AUR), along with a top corner reminder that “208 + 10 new | 0 ignored”, and the fact that can lead to updating MORE than once a day is my only problem :grin:

Whatever you feel comfortable with - which can be different as you go along! - is the best way to handle it… for you. Enjoy!

9

Instead of letting Conky notify me of available updates, I let it show me the date and time of the last update. I found this to be a good way to avoid updating too often when I’m bored :sweat_smile:

2 Likes
10

You could even go one step further and alarm you quickly if its a package you really want to be updated all the time (like Firefox). And otherwise it will notify you only once per day. That’s something I want to do with a custom script, but didn’t found time to do.

11

Done something like that! :innocent:

Here is my approach for a Conky message in case of Firefox and/or Kernel update:

#${color green}${alignc}${if_existing /home/denonom/.conky/checkupdates.txt firefox}Firefox Update verfĂźgbar!${else}${if_existing /home/denonom/.conky/checkupdates.txt linux-zen}Kernel Update verfĂźgbar!${endif}${endif}

The prerequisite for this is to have a checkupdates.txt (created by a small autostart script) to query from, but I guess grepping the checkupdates command directly might also be a way.

However, I’m currently not using it, because I need to declutter my Conky stuff. Simply too much fun!

1 Like
12

Nice, I like such self created solutions with a script. And I just wrote such a script grepping from checkupdates directly. But need an actual update to test it, before posting it into the public. Currently my system is up to date and I forgot what the exact output of checkupdates actually is. :smiley:

Edit: I warned you: Check Updates List - Report and notify only when specific packages needs an update on Archlinux

13

Unless you’ve just updated, the answer is yes.

14

To make it easier for any of you thinking of this, here’s the ‘driver’ for my conky display:

Updates driver 
#!/bin/bash

# A program to safely check for updates and
# ouput counts of new and ignored packages
# if any updates are available
# pacman hook rm's chk files on update

# create vars
NEWPKG=0
IGNPKG=0
NEWAUR=0
OUTPUT="System up-to-date"

# check is an Arch system!
if [[ -f /usr/bin/pacman ]]; then
	ISONARCH="True"
else
	echo "Not an Arch system"
	exit 1This text will be hidden
fi

# count AUR updates
NEWAUR=`yay -Qua | wc -l`

# run checkupd to create file in /tmp
# or run checkupdates if checkupd not there
# (ignored count not available from checkupdates)
if [[ -f /usr/bin/checkupd ]]; then
	checkupd > /tmp/conky-update-check
else
	checkupdates > /tmp/conky-update-check
	IGNPKG="?"
fi
# if file not zero length, count pkgs
# else OUTPUT "System up-to-date"
# and remove 'list' file for scroller
if [[ -s /tmp/conky-update-check ]]; then
	while IFS=$'\n' read -r line;
  	do
	    ((++NEWPKG))
    	    if [[ "$line" == *"[ignored]"* ]]; then
				((--NEWPKG))
	    		((++IGNPKG))
    	    fi
  	done < /tmp/conky-update-check
  	# Also create list of packages for scroll
  	if [[ -f /usr/bin/checkupdext ]]; then
		checkupdext > /tmp/conky-update-list
	else
		checkupdates > /tmp/conky-update-list
	fi
	if [[ ${NEWAUR} > 0 ]]; then
		echo " " >> /tmp/conky-update-list
		echo "AUR Packages" >> /tmp/conky-update-list
		echo "------------" >> /tmp/conky-update-list
		yay -Qua | column -t -N Name,Current,"->",New >> /tmp/conky-update-list
    fi
	if [[ ${NEWPKG} == 0 ]]; then rm /tmp/conky-update-list; fi
else
	echo ${OUTPUT} > /tmp/conky-update-report
	rm /tmp/conky-update-list
	exit 0
fi

# output RESULT
RESULT=$NEWPKG" + "$NEWAUR" new | "$IGNPKG" ignored"
echo $RESULT > /tmp/conky-update-report
exit 0

You might find a useful piece in there, although the ‘styles’ aren’t needed if you aren’t displaying the update file lists onscreen!

1 Like
15

What’s the point of any of that?

To me it seems like a very complicated way for your computer to tell you: “Yes, indeed, there are updates available, because there are always updates available.”

Do you also have a conky that tells you that, today specifically, 2+2=4? Do you connect to some server to check if that is true?

16

Completely unnecessary, but done for fun - and saves effort anytime I wonder about what updates might be waiting! Sometimes I want to know if (for instance) a ZFS capable kernel is waiting, so I know whether to update now rather than later…

Is everything on your system there for a sensible reason? If so, I guess you haven’t been infected by conky fever yet :frog:

17

Yes. :eyes:

1 Like
18

Avoid conky then - you can get used to having everything you want to know immediately at hand without even having to type in an alias…

As for updates - I might know there is LIKELY to be some, but are there enough to do it now, or do I have time to do it now, or what specifically, or…

19

For the official repos :

checkupdates

For the AUR :

yay -Qu
20

wait, i know its really a newbie question, but every time you mean package you mean the applications you got or the modifications you made to your DE?