How to manage your updates in Ubuntu

APT tools
There are three methods for managing software through Ubuntu: two graphical interface applications, and the command-line tools.

The ‘Add/Remove Applications’ tool, in the Applications menu, is a simple and intuitive front end for the most popular software from the Ubuntu repositories.

The packages are split into groups (Accessories, Games, Internet, etc) and e ach has a description and popularity rating.

The tool is initially restricted to ‘Canonical-maintained’ applications only (the ‘main’ repository) but can be extended to all open-source applications, or all types.

A search bar is provided, which will narrow down the category results as you type. Software here can be installed just by ticking the box alongside, or uninstalled by clearing it.

Nothing more needs to be done.

The Synaptic graphical interface provides access to all available packages, in contrast to the selected ones offered in the Add/Remove Applications tool.

Synaptic is useful for tracking down more obscure software or performing advanced searches.

Multiple packages can be marked for installation or removal. The packages marked with the Ubuntu logo are supported by Canonical.

On the command-line side, there are two tools that are frequently used: ‘apt-get’ for installing (and removing) applications, and ‘apt-cache’ for searching.

You may already be familiar with the apt-get command.

To install the ‘sox’ audio application, run:

$ sudo apt-get install sox

Apt-get will notify you of any dependencies and ask for confirmation.

If there are no dependencies required, it will go ahead and download and install the package immediately.

To remove packages, replace ‘install’ with either ‘remove’ or ‘autoremove’.

The latter has a particularly useful benefit: not only is the package remov ed, but also any dependencies that were installed alongside it.

Only those that are not required by any other package are removed, so this command is useful for tidying up after an uninstallation.

If you use ‘remove’ instead, the named package will be removed, but the dependencies installed by it will remain on the system.

Here is an example:

$ sudo apt-get autoremove sox

The ‘apt-get’ command will also refresh the index of packages.

Run ‘sudo apt-get update’ to do this.

The same can be achieved in Synaptic by clicking the ‘Reload’ button.

Finally, an update to any newer versions of packages can be performed with ‘sudo apt-get upgrade’.

However, the graphical utility provided by Ubuntu will do the same and will also provide details about these updates.

For searching packages, the graphical tools are usually the better option, but you can do a quick and easy search at the command line.

If you wanted to search for any package containing the word ‘mp3’:

$ apt-cache search mp3 | less

There are thousands of packages in the repositories and the list may be quite long, so pipe the output to ‘less’ as shown here.