How to Update Ubuntu through Terminal

 | Updated March 17, 2021 | Categories Tutorials

Update ubuntu from terminal

Ubuntu packages can be managed by using command lines like apt or GUI tools like software updater such as for the updates. Keeping your system updated will help you protect your computer against vulnerabilities and intrusions.

This article will show you the different ways to update the packages of your Ubuntu system through command lines and GUI tools.

1) Update the packages using command line

The common way to update your packages on Linux system is the command line. On Ubuntu, it exists some the default command line package manager apt and some others like aptitude which are also useful. The packages manager help you to do some stuff like installing, removing or updating the packages, upgrading your system version and some others.

apt

Apt is the default package manager installed on Ubuntu systems. Apt offers some options to update all the packages or specific packages on your system. The common first way to do is to update the cache of the packages with the command

# apt update
Hit:1 http://ppa.launchpad.net/bitcoin/bitcoin/ubuntu xenial InRelease         
Hit:2 http://ppa.launchpad.net/graphics-drivers/ppa/ubuntu xenial InRelease    
Hit:3 http://ppa.launchpad.net/gwendal-lebihan-dev/hexchat-stable/ubuntu xenial InRelease
Hit:4 http://ppa.launchpad.net/noobslab/themes/ubuntu xenial InRelease         
Hit:5 https://download.jitsi.org stable/ InRelease                             
Hit:6 http://ppa.launchpad.net/ravefinity-project/ppa/ubuntu xenial InRelease

You can upgrade the packages installed in your system

# apt upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
Calculating upgrade... Done
The following packages will be upgraded:
  apt apt-transport-https apt-utils chromium-browser chromium-browser-l10n
  chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra curl
....
....

You can need to install some additional updated packages that are important for the systems, this is done with the dist-upgrade option

# apt dist-upgrade

You can choose to upgrade only a specific package

# apt install --only-package chromium-browser
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  chromium-browser-l10n chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra
Suggested packages:
  webaccounts-chromium-extension unity-chromium-extension adobe-flashplugin
The following packages will be upgraded:
  chromium-browser chromium-browser-l10n chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra
3 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 47 not upgraded.
Need to get 59.9 MB of archives.
After this operation, 2,048 B disk space will be freed.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] y

You can also use the apt install command to update a package that is already installed.

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following additional packages will be installed:
  chromium-browser-l10n chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra
Suggested packages:
  webaccounts-chromium-extension unity-chromium-extension adobe-flashplugin
The following packages will be upgraded:
  chromium-browser chromium-browser-l10n chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra
3 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove

You can see that it asks to automatically update the package when it's already installed.

aptitude

You can also use aptitude to manage your packages on Ubuntu. You can update the list of the package with

# aptitude update
Hit http://cm.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial InRelease
Get: 1 http://cm.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates InRelease [109 kB]
Get: 2 http://cm.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-backports InRelease [107 kB] 
Hit http://dl.google.com/linux/chrome/deb stable Release
Hit https://deb.nodesource.com/node_9.x xenial InRelease                       
Hit https://download.jitsi.org stable/ InRelease

You can now upgrade all the installed packages with the safe-upgrade option

# aptitude safe-upgrade 
The following packages will be upgraded: 
  apt apt-transport-https apt-utils chromium-browser 
  chromium-browser-l10n chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra curl 
  distro-info-data dpkg dpkg-dev dselect friendly-recovery ghostscript 
  ghostscript-x gir1.2-packagekitglib-1.0 google-chrome-stable

You can need to install packages that the safe-upgrade option can't do with the full-upgrade option

# aptitude full-upgrade

2) Update packages using GUI tools

Besides command lines, you can use graphical tools to update the packages on your Ubuntu systems. Ubuntu comes with a default GUI package manager known as Software Updater.

To launch it, go to the dashboard

Then run it, it will look for all the packages which can be updated

You can see the details of the packages to update and choose those to upgrade.

You will be asked for your password to confirm the process.

3) Using Synaptic

This is a graphical front-end to apt. It combines the versatility of the Graphical user tool with the apt-get command line tool. With Synaptic, you can install, upgrade, update and remove software packages.  you can also browse, search and sort available software packages, manage repositories and upgrade the entire system. Synaptic also gives you more information about Software dependencies and conflicts about other packages residing in the system.

Installing Synaptic

You can install Synaptic using the CLI or  via the built-in software center

To install using the CLI, login as root and run

# sudo apt-get install synaptic

To launch synaptic using on the terminal, run

# synaptic

Alternatively, you can search for the application on the GUI applications manager

Once launched, you'll catch a glimpse of  Synaptic's dashboard as shown

As seen above, the main window is divided into 3 sections. On the left pane, there's a package browser, on the right, we have the package list and package details on the lower right.

To get more information about a package, right click on it and hit 'Properties'

Here, more info about the package will be displayed

Keeping your System up to date, including the kernel

To upgrade your system with Synaptic:

  • Click Reload or press Ctrl + R to make Synaptic aware of the available latest updates.

    The repositories will be checked for the latest changes


  • After the repository is checked, Hit Mark all Upgrades or press Ctrl + G.

    In the next Window, click on "Mark " to effect the changes to be made


  • Click Apply on the toolbar or press Ctrl + P. A dialog appears with a summary of the changes that will be made to your system.

  • Click Apply to confirm the changes and go ahead with the upgrade.

Now you know the different possibilities that you have to update them on Ubuntu. You can use the command interface as well as the graphical tool. Just choose the best method for you but it's really interesting to operate with the terminal.

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