One Single Command to Update Everything in Ubuntu?

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.

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

Well.. bad news is that no, there isn't. Good news though is that here I've put together one.

And to go on with the idea of simplification I've turned its creation into a "single" command line. So here it is:

echo "sudo apt update && sudo apt -y upgrade && sudo apt -y dist-upgrade && sudo apt -y autoremove && sudo apt autoclean" > update && sudo mv update /usr/local/bin/update && sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/update

Now, whenever the need for updating arises you just type update in the terminal, input your password and voilà.

This might look like one of those incomprehensible things you only copy-paste from. But it doesn't really have to be ! See it's actually quite simple, so..

What this is :

1. Every update command (and then further commands) were concatenated using && (including apt autoremove to remove no longer used dependencies).
2. -y was added to every apt command that would otherwise prompt for a positive answer to perform its actions.
3. echo was placed in front of the command and the line was surrounded with "" so its characters wouldn't escape.
4. > was used to redirect/write echo's output (our line) to an "update" file.
5. The file is moved to /usr/local/bin/ so it is executable from anywhere. Writing on this path requires superuser access which is why it's not possible to do it in the step before.
6. The file was turned into an executable using chmod.

sudo apt install unattended-upgrades

This is the best line yet. All the other solutions, you have to type the one line over and over again every day. This is truly the one-command solution. See official 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).

just copy paste the following alias command and execute it:-

$ alias fup='sudo apt-get -y update;sudo apt-get -y full-upgrade;sudo apt-get -y autoremove; sudo apt-get -y autoclean'

now, execute it as

$ fup

it will automatically do all its jobs.

Now, you may need to use this frequently. So for that create a file name .bash_aliases in your HOME directory and pase this following command mentioned above as alias like:-

$ touch ./.bash_aliases

now save the file and exit, after this edit your .bashrc file to export your .bash_aliases file for everytime you need to run this command by.

$ gedit .bashrc

now paste the following code in the end of file.

if [ -f /home/abhyam/.bash_aliases ];then
source /home/abhyam/.bash_aliases
fi

now save the file and exit and so source .bashrc

now you can run the command fup to fully update and upgrade your system anytime.

The benifit of creating that .bash_aliases file is you can also create custom aliases in that file for future help and that will automatically sourced each time you open a terminal.

Thank you.

Found this elsewhere:

    sudo -- sh -c "apt update && apt upgrade -y"

Can also alias this to use 'upgrade' in your ~/.bash_aliases with something like:

    alias upgrade="sudo -- sh -c 'apt update && apt upgrade -y'"

and do a 'source ~/.bash_aliases' to make it work

I found this thread looking for the same treasure. In case anyone is still interested, I've been working on a git project which runs through the same commands.

#!/usr/bin/bash
    RED='\033[0;31m'
    GREEN='\033[0;32m'
    PURPLE='\033[0;35m'
    NC='\033[0m' # No Color

#Region --- Updates
    echo -e "${PURPLE}RUNNING: sudo apt update --fix-missing${NC}"

for i in {1..100}
do  
    sudo apt clean
    sudo apt update --fix-missing
    status=$?
if test $status -eq 0
then 
    echo -e "${GREEN}SUCCESS: sudo apt update --fix-missing${NC}\n"
    break
else 
    echo -e "${RED}FAILED: sudo apt update --fix-missing${NC}\n"
    sleep 1m
fi
done

#Region --- Upgrades
for i in {1..100}
do  
echo -e "${PURPLE}RUNNING: sudo apt upgrade -y${NC}"
    sudo apt full-upgrade -y
    status=$?
if test $status -eq 0
then
    echo -e "${GREEN}SUCCESS: sudo apt upgrade -y${NC}\n"
    break
else 
    echo -e "${RED}FAILED: sudo apt upgrade -y${NC}\n"
    sleep 1m
fi
done

#Region
for i in {1..100}
do  
echo -e "${PURPLE}RUNNING: sudo apt autoremove -y${NC}"
    sudo apt autoremove -y
    status=$?
if test $status -eq 0
then 
    echo -e "${GREEN}SUCCESS: sudo apt autoremove -y${NC}\n"
    break
else
    echo -e "${RED}FAILED: sudo apt autoremove -y${NC}\n"
    sleep 1m
fi
done

#Region --- Exiting BasherUpdate
    echo -e "${PURPLE}Exiting BasherUpdate...${NC}\n"
    exit 0

Note that I used a loop on the apt update command because I was getting mirror sync in progress errors and wanted it to keep trying. Hope this helps and let me know if you have suggestions!