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Updating Packages#

We now know what a repository is and which ones we have. Let's tell our system to access the remote Ubuntu repositories and download information about all the latest packages we can install. What this command does not do is actually download any packages or software, and it does not install anything it finds. It just gets information about what's available in the remote repositories and saves that information locally.

Run this: sudo apt update

Note

Your output could be different. Share it in the Discord community if there is output you're not sure about.

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superman@develop:~$ sudo apt update
[sudo] password for superman:
Hit:1 http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal InRelease
Hit:2 http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates InRelease
Hit:3 http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports InRelease
Hit:4 http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security InRelease
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
98 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them.

So, I have 98 packages I can upgrade on my local system, as we can see above: 98 packages can be upgraded. Run 'apt list --upgradable' to see them..

What the update sub-command did was fetched the latest package information from the repository, compared it to what we have locally, and then determined based on new information, we actually have 98 packages that are out of date. With this in mind, let's go ahead and list the packages we can update using the command we've been given: apt list --upgradable:

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superman@develop:~$ apt list --upgradable
Listing... Done
alsa-ucm-conf/focal-updates 1.2.2-1ubuntu0.12 all [upgradable from: 1.2.2-1ubuntu0.1]
apt-utils/focal-updates 2.0.6 amd64 [upgradable from: 2.0.2ubuntu0.2]
apt/focal-updates 2.0.6 amd64 [upgradable from: 2.0.2ubuntu0.2]
base-files/focal-updates 11ubuntu5.5 amd64 [upgradable from: 11ubuntu5.1]
bcache-tools/focal-updates 1.0.8-3ubuntu0.1 amd64 [upgradable from: 1.0.8-3]
bolt/focal-updates 0.8-4ubuntu1 amd64 [upgradable from: 0.8-4]
cloud-init/focal-updates 22.1-14-g2e17a0d6-0ubuntu1~20.04.3 all [upgradable from: 20.2-45-g5f7825e2-0ubuntu1~20.04.1]
cloud-initramfs-copymods/focal-updates 0.45ubuntu2 all [upgradable from: 0.45ubuntu1]
cloud-initramfs-dyn-netconf/focal-updates 0.45ubuntu2 all [upgradable from: 0.45ubuntu1]
command-not-found/focal-updates 20.04.6 all [upgradable from: 20.04.2]
...

Note

I've omitted a very large portion of the list otherwise it would be crazy long.

We can pick out one of these items to see what's going on: bolt/focal-updates 0.8-4ubuntu1 amd64 [upgradable from: 0.8-4]

This can be broken down like this:

  • bolt/focal-updates - this is the package itself. It's inside the focal-updates repository
  • 0.8-4ubuntu1 - this is the version we can upgrade to, not what we currently have
  • amd64 - this is the CPU architecture the package has been built for (remember CPU architecture from the start?)
  • [upgradable from: 0.8-4] - and this is what we currently have installed (0.8-4 versus 0.8-4ubuntu1)

But what is the bolt package? Before we do an actual update of all the packages, let's find out: apt info bolt

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superman@develop:~$ apt info bolt
Package: bolt
Version: 0.8-4ubuntu1
Priority: optional
Section: admin
Origin: Ubuntu
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <ubuntu-devel-discuss@lists.ubuntu.com>
Original-Maintainer: Debian freedesktop.org maintainers <pkg-freedesktop-maintainers@lists.alioth.debian.org>
Bugs: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+filebug
Installed-Size: 496 kB
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.28), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.55.2), libpolkit-gobject-1-0 (>= 0.99), libudev1 (>= 183)
Homepage: https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/bolt/bolt
Task: server, ubuntu-desktop-minimal, ubuntu-desktop, cloud-image, kubuntu-desktop, xubuntu-core, xubuntu-desktop, lubuntu-desktop, ubuntustudio-desktop-core, ubuntustudio-desktop, ubuntukylin-desktop, ubuntu-mate-core, ubuntu-mate-desktop, ubuntu-budgie-desktop
Download-Size: 132 kB
APT-Sources: http://au.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates/main amd64 Packages
Description: system daemon to manage thunderbolt 3 devices
 Thunderbolt 3 features different security modes that require
 devices to be authorized before they can be used. The D-Bus API can be
 used to list devices, enrol them (authorize and store them in the
 local database) and forget them again (remove previously enrolled
 devices). It also emits signals if new devices are connected (or
 removed). During enrolment devices can be set to be automatically
 authorized as soon as they are connected.  A command line tool, called
 boltctl, can be used to control the daemon and perform all the above
 mentioned tasks.

That's a lot of information. I recommend you give it a glance now, but don't be too concerned with what you're seeing for now. What we can find out from this command is that the bolt package is a "system daemon to manage thunderbolt 3 devices".