Too many updates

Updates Available, now this is supposed to make me feel good that my packages are getting updates, however, Everyday getting 50+ updates is simply too much. Today I’ve got 60 updates, I’m not comfortable to update so frequently. Is there any way to get updates less frequently, say weekly ?

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Yeah, switch to MX Linux, Ubuntu or Mint.

A rolling system means having the latest best and most secure software.

Make a backup of your important data and feel safe.

You should do the same with the above mentioned.

Summary

bu

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EOS/Arch is rolling, there will be updates constantly.

There is no reason you can’t update weekly, just turn off the notifier and run your updates once per week.

Just don’t let it go too long. If you let it get too far out-of-date, the difficulty of upgrading is greatly amplified.

Also, the number of updates you get is directly related to how many packages you have installed. Keeping your system leaner will lessen the amount of updates you receive.

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you also dont have update directly when you see systemd packages Mesa Nvidia or nouveau or linux kernel you can wait for some days longer :slight_smile:

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By default eos-update-notifier (if it is what you are using) may be a bit too aggressive with notifications as it runs every 2 hours 25 minutes. You may change it to notify you weekly about updates if you wish.

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Let me guess: you’re using KDE? It was updated to the new version a few days ago.

If you want a rolling with a service pack of updates, Manjaro can be a better distribution for you.

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Theoretical you can do every two months update, but depence moslty what kinda update is you dont know what happend in between, once a week is possible enough, i update my laptop once in 3 weeks but i dont use it regulary :slight_smile: just if you got spare time then update if you between duty’s is always bad if you gona update quickly… just take your time of you do once a week or 2 it can work. keep up the news a bit and its flying, is my personal opinion… :slight_smile:

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Frequent updates are better imo, because you know what you’ve recently updated and it is easy to troubleshoot in case of problems.
I can’t even imagine how huge a list of packages must be if updating every 2 months… Even once a week it’s probably way too many packages to remember without looking at the logs afterwards.

I usually update about 2 times a day or more (if necessary)

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Do you have testing repos enabled? That seems like an exaggerated number of updates, unless you have thousands of packages installed.

I have 660 installed packages on my ArchLabs install and I had 4 updates today. Maybe 6 yesterday.

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Welcome to Arch/EOS.

As most suggested, I have no notifier. I can run updates on the morning and again in the afternoon. There’s almost always an update. I run once a week or two whenever I have time.

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Absolutely. If you click update mirrors in the Welcome window, in the lower right hand part of the Selecting Arch mirrors window, you will see Max hours from latest mirror sync. If you change that to 168, that will make your updates appear every week (there are 168 hours in a week BTW).

However I would like to discourage you from doing that. Yeah it is annoying to get update notifications while you’re in the middle of doing something important. But then again it’s better to always be ‘up to date’ not only to receive the latest and greatest from the developers, but also to keep your machine more secure. If regrettably an update makes your computer do something that you didn’t expect, you can always roll the update back. Have a look at the wiki or just ask us here on the forum.

I truly hope that answers your question. If you have any other questions, please do not hesitate to post in the forums. We’re here to help - not hinder - your experience.

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I cannot imagine where 50+ updates a day are coming from. You must have a huge number of applications installed. I probably get 5 or 6 a day on my fairly minimal system (not Endeavouros).

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Dear abhayks,

More frequent updates are the “price” you pay for having a rolling release. As another has said here, if you wish to have fewer and less comprehensive updates, you might want to consider changing over to a fixed release such as MX Linux (the best of the fixed releases in my opinion).

I update my EndeavourOS system once a day, almost always in the morning here on the east coast of North America. I have been using this distro since August 2019 and I have not had any problems that couldn’t be fixed merely by looking for or asking about any such on this forum (there have been very few updating problems).

I have removed the eos programs; I have kept Welcome but I have it set to NOT start up with the computer.

I do not want “nagging” notifications every time there is an update. Doing an update once a day seems to be sufficient.

Doing your updates that way ensures that you have an up-to-date system (almost like having a brand-new computer every day) and, if you update daily, you’ll probably find that the time involved is minimal. Generally, depending of course on just what is being updated - and I have a LOT of programs installed on my computer(s) - the process takes no more than five minutes, often less (as today) and only rarely more.

Both my wife and I do our updating this way and it has become second nature to us both.

But - as many others have said - Linux is about CHOICE. You should do with what you feel comfortable whether it be using a fixed release (with relatively few updates but also with the necessity to reinstall the whole system periodically - though MX Linux makes that fairly painless) or using a rolling release (with its frequent and comprehensive updates which has the advantage of keeping your system fresh but also has the advantage of not needing for you to ever completely reinstall the system).

I prefer the rolling release type, and specifically EndeavourOS which is the best GNU/Linux distribution I have used in twelve years of using Linux.

I do hope that the explanations and suggestions offered in your thread are informative and helpful to you and I wish you the very best of luck.

Lawrence

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It’s funny that this same “complaint” seems to pop-up now and then on different Arch-based distros forums/communities.

It’s like with mobile phones where people tend to scream “why doesn’t manufacturer XX already provide the newest Android update / security update” and then when they switch to a pixel, they start to complain “Again a software update, i just updated this last month”.

Oh anyways, the 50+ updates everyday seems way too much and doesn’t sound like a true statement or then you actually (as stated by others) have way too much packages installed anyways.

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I use Pamac; not to actually update FROM, but because I can see what the updates ARE without starting pacman.

My practice is to only update if there is a new kernel or a new browser version. Otherwise I let it ride. I implemented that to stop myself from updating every time there was a notification.

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You can make eos-update-notifier to show packages too. Just change ShowWhatAboutUpdates value to packages instead of number in /etc/eos-update-notifier.conf

and ShowHowAboutUpdates to window

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If I am being totally honest, I have never seen any point in using an update notifier on Arch. There will pretty much always be updates available so install them at whatever frequency you prefer.

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Yep. but I don’t use it :wink:
Never installed it. I use pamac-aur-git as update notifier and package search, but do all installs and updates thru terminal.

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I personally like it, because it is a clean and simple program made with good intentions like all the others on EOS. Using it even on Arch, even though I tweaked the timer a bit :slight_smile:

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I could make more choices to eos-update-notifier about how to set the notification schedule. For example, monthly, weekly, daily, hourly, etc.

But do you think it is worth the extra work? As you know, you can simply modify the systemd timer file (~/.config/systemd/user/eos-update-notifier.timer) to your liking, and it is not very hard…

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