Ubuntu Software Management
Updating And Upgrading
To make updates from repositories run:
# apt update ## update the package lists for upgrade # apt upgrade ## upgrade packages # apt dist-upgrade ## upgrade the kernel also
I generally use the following alias to manually check and install updates and remove old and unneeded packages:
alias upd='apt autoclean && apt autoremove && apt update \ && apt dist-upgrade && cat /run/reboot-required* 2>/dev/null'
If there any errors during apt update, then run the following once:
# apt update -o Acquire::CompressionTypes::Order::=gz
To install a new package:
# apt install package-name
To just make a simulation run (without installing anything):
$ apt -s install package-name
To configure all (possibly) yet not configured packages:
# dpkg --configure -a
To list installed packages enter:
$ apt --installed list
To remove a package and for clean up use:
# apt remove --purge package-name # apt autoremove # apt autoclean
To remove residual configurations from old package releases:
# apt purge $(dpkg -l | grep '^rc ' | awk '{print $2}')
To upgrade to new Ubuntu release:
# do-release-upgrade
To list Ubuntu server components or tasks
(a group of packages
that will add a server functionality):
$ tasksel --list-tasks
To install a server task
:
# tasksel install server-task
Note that tasksel is not installed by default.
Getting Information
To list files contained in an installed package:
$ dpkg -L package-name $ dpkg-query -L package-name
To list files contained in a package that is not yet installed in your local system:
$ apt-file list package-name
To find out the name of the installed package that provides a file:
$ dpkg -S file-path
To find out the name of a package that is not yet installed in your local system and provides a file:
$ apt-file -F search file-path
Note: Remove -F to search for partial
matches of file-path:
$ apt-file search partial-file-path
As a more complicated example; to see the installed version of the package
providing a command (e.g. the GET command):
$ type GET ## find the full path of the command GET is hashed (/usr/bin/GET) $ dpkg -S /usr/bin/GET ## find the related package name libwww-perl: /usr/bin/GET $ dpkg -l libwww-perl ## find the package version and description Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold | Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend |/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad) ||/ Name Version Architecture Description +++-==============-============-============-===================================================== ii libwww-perl 6.67-1 all simple and consistent interface to the world-wide web
Firmware Operations
For firmware updates; use
$ fwupdmgr get-devices
to get a list of updateable devices on your system, as supported by the Linux Vendor Firmware Service (LVFS);
$ fwupdmgr get-updates
to get a list of all available firmware updates; and
# fwupdmgr update
to update all firmware to latest versions available.