Make Ubuntu Apply All Updates Automatically
Several months ago I bought my girlfriend a laptop to use for school and replaced the Operating System that came with it with Ubuntu. She likes it but feels that it’s kind of an inconvenience to have to type in her account password to apply the latest software updates. Further, it’s also a hassle to even be made aware that there are updates available to be installed in the first place. When the Update Manager would pop up she’d exclaim, “Ugghh! I just did this yesterday.” So I decided to find a way for Ubuntu to apply ALL updates silently in the background without even making the user aware they were being applied.
Step one:
First you need to click System -> Administration -> Software Sources. On the updates tab make sure “Check for updates: ‘Daily’” is set and “Install security updates without confirmation” is set. Then close this window.
Step two:
Open a terminal window and paste in the following command:
gksudo gedit /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/50unattended-upgrades
This will open a file in your text editor. In that file is a section that looks like this (which will vary slightly, depending on the version of Ubuntu you are using):
Step three:
Remove the slashes “//” from the next to last line, like this:
That’s it!
Save and close the file and then restart your system. From now on all updates for Ubuntu will attempt to install in the background automatically without any intervention required by the user. You won’t even know they are being applied unless a system restart is required as it is after kernel updates.
However, if you feel it’s necessary, you can have the system automatically restart itself if one is required. This is achieved by removing the slashes at the bottom of the same text file, in the portion which pertain to auto-restarting, and changing the value at the end of the line from “false” to “true” to enable it. But I wouldn’t recommend it unless you know what you’re doing.