Ubuntu – How come you don’t need sudo privileges to update the packages list in the 10.10 Update Manager

10.10sudoupdate-manager

I have noticed that when I press the "Check" button from the Update Manager in Maverick, it starts directly downloading the information on packages without asking me my password (sudo verification) like it used to be in 10.04 and before.

I'm wondering why so because in the Terminal, you've still got to be sudo to execute an "apt-get update".

Best Answer

In Ubuntu 10.10, Update Manager switched from the Synaptic backend to the Aptdaemon backend by default. Aptdaemon allows more fine-grained privilege management with PolicyKit, and the default PolicyKit configuration for regular users allows them to check for updates without needing elevated privileges.

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