Ubuntu – Fully automatic updates in Kubuntu

automationkdekubuntuupdates

It is really annoying to click the update icon and enter password every time to confirm updates.

How can I setup fully automatic updates without any prompts? (Not only security updates)
Some small notification about finished updates would also be nice.

I'm using Kubuntu 11.04 and KPackageKit.

Best Answer

Open the file manager as super user, e.g. sudo dolphin
^{Be careful with such instance of file manager because you may delete something important and break your system}
Create a file named autoupdate in /etc/cron.* (where * is hourly, daily, weekly, monthly depending on your preference). I used /etc/cron.hourly/.

Put the following contents into the file:

#!/bin/bash
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade -y
apt-get autoclean

... and save it.

Allow the file to be executed in its properties, or by using this: sudo chmod 755 autoupdate

And that's it! You will have your software automatically updated without any notifications
(of course, if you've turned off the notifications in update settings).
_{Thanks to boehj for the source of information: Automatic Weekly Package Updates Using Cron And Apt-Get}

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Why is a restart only required on some updates

Whenever you open or execute a file in Windows, Windows locks the file in place (this is a simplification, but usually true.) You may have encountered those annoying errors where you can't delete a file because another process has an exclusive lock on it. This is why whenever Windows has to update itself you need a reboot for it to take effect. Windows will queue up file replacement and deletion activities for when it next boots up (when nothing has a lock on anything.)

On the other hand, Linux has a mechanism wherein it's not the file that is locked but the underlying data on the disk that is. This may seem a trivial differentiation but it means that the file's record in the filesystem's table of contents can be deleted without disturbing any program that already has the file open. So you can delete a file while it is still executing or otherwise in use and it will continue to exist on disk as long as some process has an open handle for it even though its entry in the file table is gone. This allows Linux to replace a program completely while it's still running and then simply restart the program or just wait for the process to exit naturally. Once the old instance is killed, the old files will no longer exist at all and the new files will have taken up residence in their entries in the file table.

So, as long as a particular file is not special in some way (like, for example, the kernel image file or files belonging similarly low-level systems) the updater can usually update-in-place like this. I'm sure there are special cases and situations where this would not be a good idea, but for most cases it's fine.

As for why OS X does it, that "just in case" theory sounds plausible.

Ubuntu – How to let Muon update manager run without entering a password

try with configuring your crontab file, to make updates automatically, as root user, example:

in terminal write (as root loged user):

nano /etc/crontab

Then, for example, if you want updates every single day to perform at for example 14:30 o'clock at end of that file write:

30 14 * * * root apt-get update

and simply save changes.

That can help, and to don't worry about everyday updates, as it do that automatically at given time and given user and given command.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Ubuntu – Why is a restart only required on some updates

Ubuntu – How to let Muon update manager run without entering a password

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