How can I stop the Software Updater from nagging me to restart?

Software Updater has installed some new software. I'm largely not interested in this fact as I just use this machine as a file server and watch everything on my tablet or Windows machine.

However, every time I connect to the machine, I see this:

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This is a window with no close button with the "Restart" button selected by default so literally my next keypress will reboot the machine. This is almost as bad as Windows 8 rebooting whenever it wants to in order to apply updates.

I don't mind it installing updates as and when it wants to but I am only ever going to restart the machine when I want to restart it. How can I stop the Software Updater from nagging me to restart?


Solution 1:

dconf-editor on Trusty doesn't have a hide-reboot-notifications option, but adding one with the following command appears to work:

dconf write /com/ubuntu/update-notifier/hide-reboot-notifications true

I tried using gsettings set but it complained that the key didn't exist. So far dconf write has stopped the reminder appearing, and the setting is now visible in dconf-editor.

Solution 2:

  • Launch dconf editor the way you want, maybe Dash
  • Click Ctrl+F and search for hide-reboot-notification and click next

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  • Click the checkbox and you are done!!!

Solution 3:

Use xkill.

I am using Ubuntu 12.04 so that's what I'll use for the instructions.

Go to "system settings"->"keyboard"->"shortcuts" tab

In the left sidebar, select "custom shortcuts" and then press the "+" sign at the bottom to add one.

In the window that pops up, type xkill in both fields for name and command. Apply.
Click on the word "disabled" in the new shortcut and it will change to "New accelerator..."

Press your key combinations to activate xkill. I use Ctrl+Alt+X .

Now, every time that window shows up (or a window hangs), just press the key combination and your cursor will change to an X shape. Click on the window to kill it. To cancel just right click anywhere.

NOTE: If you have any unsaved data in the window you select when doing this, it will be lost.

Solution 4:

How about just using:

killall update-manager

Anyway, my opinion is that you should disable the update manager at startup and in synaptic options (Configuration > repositories > updates > check updates automatically: never), since I agree, it is really annoying.

Of course, you WILL NEED to acquire the habit of do a manual update instead, or even schedule it with some tool (like cron). In order to be updated you must type regularly:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade -y