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Update Viewer

You can update your system via System ▸ Administration ▸ Update System or by selecting Show Updates from the update icon in the notification area. When you do this, the update viewer application launches and immediately starts checking for updates. Once this check completes, it shows you an overview of available updates, grouped by severity. The severities range from security updates over important updates to bug fix updates and finally enhancements.

Note that the severity information must be provided by the software repositories where the software packages originate. This information may not be available for development branches of distributions.

Figure 4 Updates overview

Below the summary of available updates, the update viewer gives and indication how long ago the last check (or “refresh”) for new updates happened, and when updates where last installed.

You can choose to manually refresh and verify the presence of updates by clicking the Refresh button.

You can change how often PackageKit refreshes on its own in the Software Update Preferences.

There is a option to view the history of updates including previous installations, removal or updates of software.

Use the Update System button to install all available updates or use the Review button to review and select individual updates. If you do not want to install updates at this time, you can just close the window.

6.1. Detailed information about updates

The Review button brings up a listing of the individual updates that are available. The area below the list displays detailed information about the selected update. The information may include references to bugs and vulnerability reports that are fixed by the update.

Note that the detailed update information must be provided by the software repositories where the software packages originate. This information may not be available for development branches of distributions.

The checkboxes next to each package in the list allow to select individual updates for installation. Use the Apply Updates button to install only the selected updates. If you do not want to install updates at this time, you can just close the window.

Figure 5 Update viewer tool

You can uncheck all the updates quickly by right clicking on the list and selecting the menu item Unselect all.

File Handler Helper Software Updates Preferences

About

Copyright

Copyright © 2008  Richard Hughes (richard@hughsie.com)

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