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BonerNimrod

Member

Registered: 2026-05-05

Posts: 2  

Setting up automatic updates (or something close to it).

I had recently installed Devuan for the first time on a used laptop, and essentially put, I would like to set up a way to automatically update the system and any installed packages. I'm mostly coming off from Mint, did dabble in Debian last year, but I'm mostly used to how the former handled updates through it's manager, and perhaps prefer it. So far, I have both Gnome-package-manager and unattended-upgrades installed. From what I remember, I think used package manager the most on Debian. I only discovered unattended-upgrades late into my foray, but I don't believe I had it set up to know if it did work for me. Also, I learned it mostly does security updates. What would be the best way to set up, at least, a manager that would notify me from time to time, and let me review what updates I would need to install on my machine? I would like to have something similar to Mint's manager, but I can try and learn about other alternatives. I'm not afraid of the terminal, but it is a bit inconvenient to type the commands and remember to do it every now and then. I appreciate any replies, I'm new here.

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,894  

Re: Setting up automatic updates (or something close to it).

This was put together by a few of us in the devuan community a few years ago. It still works - I'm using it in excalibur. It checks for updates and gives you a notification in the panel.
https://get.refracta.org/files/packages … sr_all.deb

See /etc/default/update-notifier for settings.

And now, looking at that file myself, I'm reminded that it can do more than just notify you. Here's an excerpt.

# Set the default action for clicking on the notification icon.
# Valid choices:
# "none" or commented to only see a list of available upgrades.
# "terminal" to run the upgrade in a terminal
# "gui" to run the upgrade in synaptic package manager.

FRONTEND="none"

Edit: Source is here: https://git.devuan.org/fsmithred/basic-update-notifier

BonerNimrod

Member

Registered: 2026-05-05

Posts: 2  

Re: Setting up automatic updates (or something close to it).

I'll give it a try, thanks. I assume this would take care of only the packages shown on Synaptic, and any new versions of Devuan, correct?

Last edited by BonerNimrod (Yesterday 23:40:12)

fsmithred

Administrator

Registered: 2016-11-25

Posts: 2,894  

Re: Setting up automatic updates (or something close to it).

It should work with whatever is in your apt sources and do the same as using apt or apt-get to update and upgrade.

PedigreeCat

Member

From: Warsaw

Registered: Today

Posts: 2  

Re: Setting up automatic updates (or something close to it).

I use a simple script that runs via cron. It requires absolutely no maintenance, which is why I installed it on my wife's laptop
Here is the content of the script:

#!/bin/bash
#if not root, run as root
if (( $EUID != 0 )); then
    sudo $0
    exit
fi
echo
echo ">> Looking for updates."
apt update --fix-missing
echo

echo ">> List of upgradable packages"
apt list --upgradable
echo

echo ">> Upgrading..."
apt -y full-upgrade --fix-missing --fix-broken
echo

echo ">> Making cleanup..."
apt -y autoremove
apt clean
apt autoclean
apt purge -y $(dpkg -l | awk '/^rc/ { print $2 }')
echo

# echo ">> Flatpak updates..."
flatpak update
echo

echo ">> Done."
echo

If you're interested in a more advanced tool, check out topgrade:
https://github.com/topgrade-rs/topgrade

Last edited by PedigreeCat (Today 14:57:47)