One single command to update everything in Ubuntu?

I know that there are three command to update and then upgrade the whole system, these are:

• sudo apt-get update # Fetches the list of available updates
• sudo apt-get upgrade # Strictly upgrades the current packages
• sudo apt-get dist-upgrade # Installs updates (new ones)

Is there a super-upgrade command that combines all these commands to one?

There are 3 decent choices:

1. You could create a script something like the following:

   #!/bin/bash
   set -e
   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get upgrade
   sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
   

   Call it something like update.sh and place it in /usr/local/bin and then make the script executable by running:

   sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/update.sh
   

2. Another method would be to create a bash alias (in ~/.bashrc) or wherever you normally store your aliases:

   alias update='sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade'
   

3. A final method would be to simply string the 3 commands together on the commandline:

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

A few choices...

Reference:

• Combine apt-get update and apt-get upgrade in one command

We can have a one-liner command (no need to scripts, just copy-paste)

sudo apt update -y && sudo apt full-upgrade -y && sudo apt autoremove -y && sudo apt clean -y && sudo apt autoclean -y

• update - updates the list of packages but do not install
• upgrade - install new versions of packages if new versions are available
• full-upgrade - performs the function of upgrade but will remove currently installed packages if this is needed to upgrade the system as a whole (fixing bad dependencies then)
• autoremove, autoclean and clean - clean old packages which are not needed any more
• option -y does not request for permission on every step
• && states that it just runs the next command if the previous was successfully executed

If you are annoyed by too much typing, you can define yourself an "alias". This can be done e.g. by adding a line to the end of your $HOME/.profile like this:

alias sau='sudo aptitude update && sudo aptitude upgrade'

(of course you can replace "sau" by something else -- for me that's an acronym to Sudo Apt-get Update). After saving the file, open a new shell (or "source" the .profile again running . $HOME/.profile. Now you can always simply type "sau" to do the complete job. Works great for me with multiple machines.

Unfortunately, the two commands have to be executed separately.

sudo apt install unattended-upgrades

This is the best line yet. All of the other solutions you have to type the one line over and over again every day. This is truly the one-command solution. See offical apt documentation from ubuntu!

By editing the .conf files of this package in /etc you can set the frequency of update, install, clean, autoremove...

Or simply and email including A notification that an update is available with the list of package names

A nice little log file is generated with each change, and I imagine a little script could be written as a gui extension to pop up in the desktop notifications too (off topic haha)