How can you view available updates on server builds?

[filfish]

Hi All

I'm beginning to find my way around my ubuntu 8.04 servers now, but on thing that still gets me is updates!

I can run updates and upgrades, but I was wondering if there is a way to view the available updates and choosing which ones to install?

On my desktop system, i get a popup with all the available updates and I can choose which ones to install and which ones to leave off (if required), now I don't expect a pop up box on my server build! but it would be good if there was a command to show the available ones such as

:~# apt-get list-updates

according to the man pages,

:~# apt-get --show-upgraded
or
:~# apt-get -u

should give me the desired result but I can't get anything from it!

back to the noob corner, I know!!

Cheers
should

[earthpigg]

hi,

http://linux.die.net/man/8/apt-get
(or type 'man apt-get')

-s
--simulate
--just-print
--dry-run
--recon
--no-act
No action; perform a simulation of events that would occur but do not actually change the system. Configuration Item: APT::Get::Simulate.

Simulate prints out a series of lines each one representing a dpkg operation, Configure (Conf), Remove (Remv), Unpack (Inst). Square brackets indicate broken packages with and empty set of square brackets meaning breaks that are of no consequence (rare).

try tossing the -s option into the mix.


sudo apt-get -s upgrade