Ubuntu – Updating snap, flatpak and appimage through Ubuntu(Gnome) Software and unified cli

appimageaptflatpaksnapupdates

Yes I've seen:

This is mainly for limited bandwidth situations. I'd prefer to be able to choose when applications are downloaded. I regularly manually run "apt update && apt upgrade" for this reason.

I believe snap applications update automatically on Ubuntu already, is that correct? So I have never needed to manually run "snap refresh".

Is there a unified interface for updating apt(deb), snap, flatpak, appimage from their respective repositories? Either through the command line or from Ubuntu (Gnome) software? If not, is it possible at least to update flatpak and appimage from the CLI (command-line interface) at all? I am not aware of commands analogous to "apt" and "snap" for these two.

Is it possible to browse repositories for snap, flatpak, and appimage applications via Ubuntu Software, a particular website or is Google the only option?

Best Answer

The unified interface you're talking about is called PackageKit, and it's actually what powers GNOME Software on all distributions. It's a middle-layer software that sits between the package system of a distribution and front-ends like GNOME Software or KDE Discover.

Flatpak and Snap aren't yet supported by PakageKit. However, you can install plugins for GNOME Software to manage, install, and update Flatpaks and Snaps through GNOME Software (apt install gnome-software-plugin-flatpak gnome-software-plugin-flatpak).

If you disable PackageKit background service, your system will stop updating packages automatically.